I’m a fan of the Jessica Blackwood books in general. But by the third book, certain issues have me obsessing more on what’s wrong than what’s right. I won’t even bring up that the beats of the plot and character challenges are exactly the same from book to book because, let’s face it, that happens a lot in these types of thrillers. Except I can’t think of another series quite where it’s such a template. Again, that’s not even what I have a problem with. Or I should say I’m not faulting Andrew Ma

I’m a fan of the Jessica Blackwood books in general. But by the third book, certain issues have me obsessing more on what’s wrong than what’s right. I won’t even bring up that the beats of the plot and character challenges are exactly the same from book to book because, let’s face it, that happens a lot in these types of thrillers. Except I can’t think of another series quite where it’s such a template. Again, that’s not even what I have a problem with. Or I should say I’m not faulting Andrew Mayne for it. I still went with it and had enough fun. I do think, however, that this is my last trek with either Jessica Blackwood or Andrew Mayne. It’s hard for me to square how good some of Mayne’s ideas are, how well researched, and yet how poor his actual writing tends to be past a certain point.



For example, Mayne does not trust his readers. I remember he has an actual background in magic. I remember seeing a TV show he did back several years ago because I’ve always had a passing interest, too. The way he writes his books reminds me of that over didactic way magicians have of taking you step by step through a trick. They’ll underline what they’re doing, go over it again, and remind you what they did later on, in case you forget. In a trick, they do that to upset your expectation in he execution of the trick. I suppose Mayne could be doing that here, too, but in a novel, it comes off as patronizing. Worse than that, it’s boring and frustrating.



Every time I read a book like this, I wonder why I bothered to read the previous entry when I could have had it summed up in one paragraph in the following sequel.



It never fails where something happens in the story and Jessica Blackwood has to explain why it’s horrible or why it resonates or whatever the impact is. By now we’re all VERY intimate with Blackwood because of how often Mayne does it. Not everything needs explaining. It’s more powerful if you let your work come to fruition and allow the reader to fill in the blanks. By then Mayne had fully trained us in Blackwood’s voice. We expect her guilt. Her self destructive drive.



That’s the other thing. Blackwood started as a highly likeable character in the first book. Her flaws made her even more endearing. Her police superpower, being a magician, also is a cross to bear because of the cheesy celebrity it brought her. Nice touch. She had rough edges being a newbie.



In this book, Blackwood is three years in the FBI and, if anything, she comes off as even MORE green. She doesn’t behave like a grown up. She’s more like a thin skinned teenaged girl. Plenty of male cops in books shirk captain’s orders or whatever -- because I wondered if my problem was in any way a sexist double standard. We love when John McClane or Mitch Rapp or whoever guns his way into blind situations like an 800 pound gorilla. But these guys own up to their shortcomings and to being antisocial a-holes. To being territorial with a “fire me” attitude.



With Blackwood, she keeps making things all about her to the point of putting a schoolyard of kids in danger (hello, call for back up anyway?). She throws off protective gear and self righteously charges into possibly radioactive medical labs “because there is NO TIME,” forget that it’s actually a petulant lack of patience. She constantly puts herself in bad situations only followed up with “I’m so stupid. I want to live.” Pages and pages of it.



Blackwood’s boss at one point sends another agent on a mission rather than her on a tech based mission (Blackwood admittedly is wrong for it) and yet still confronts him for punishing her by not sending her instead. But Mane insists she’s a team player.



If I knew this chick in real life, I don’t think I’d like her. I don’t think the people around her would be so reverent as Mayne write them as. So that’s another flaw in Mayne’s storytelling. Something rings very false there.



In retrospect, I wish I’d stopped at the first Blackwood book, which is fun and worth reading. I’m left wondering how good a writer Andrew Mayne really is if he’s running dry this early into his publishing career.

