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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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The Chase
by Clive Cussler |
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Rating: |
** |
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(Mildly Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Momentum In
respite to himself and his readers, Clive Cussler took a pause from the Dirk
Pitt and Kurt Austin series, and wrote The Chase.
Set in 1906, the action takes place in San Francisco and other parts Western.
Following a series of bank robberies, the government hires Isaac Bell of the
Van Dorn detective agency to find the culprit, whom the press has labeled the
Butcher Bandit, as a reference to his signature: the murder of everyone in
the bank at the time of his robbery. Bell is in the tradition of other
Cussler heroes: competent, successful, and tenacious. Also true to form, Cussler
finds some vehicles to call to the attention of readers: in The Chase,
they are trains, motorcycles and race cars. Here’s an excerpt, from the end
of Chapter 3, pp. 32-34: Wilkins stood, horrified,
staring down at the spreading pool of blood around Fred's head. He looked at
the smoldering towel where the bullet had passed through, well knowing it was
unlikely that anyone in the building had heard the gunshot. As if in a
trance, he walked to the safe and began turning the combination lock to the
required numbers. After half a minute, he pulled down on the latch and the
massive steel door swung open. "Take it and be
damned!" he hissed. The robber merely smiled and
shot Wilkins in the temple. The bank manager had barely struck the floor when
the robber strode quickly to the front door, slammed it shut, hung a CLOSED
sign in the
window, and pulled down the shades. Then he methodically cleaned out the safe
of all bills, transferring them into a laundry bag he carried tied around his
waist under his shirt. When the sack was filled until it bulged in every
seam, he stuffed the remaining bills in his pant pockets and boots. The safe
cleaned of all money, the robber stared briefly at the gold and silver coins
inside and took just one gold souvenir. There was a heavy iron rear
door to the bank that opened onto a narrow street. The robber unlocked the
door's inside latch, cracked the door open, and scanned the street. It was
lined on the opposite side with residential houses. A
group of young boys were playing baseball a block from the bank. Not good.
This was entirely unexpected by the robber. In his many hours of observing
the streets around the Cook Bank, this was the first time he had found
children playing in the street behind the bank. He was on a time schedule and
had to reach the railyard and his secret boxcar in twelve minutes.
Shouldering the bag so his face was shielded on the right side, he
walked around the ball game in progress and continued up the street, where he
ducked into an alley. For
the most part, the boys ignored him. Only one stared at the poorly dressed
man toting a big sack over his right shoulder. What struck the boy as odd was
that the man wore a Mexican sombrero, a style that was seldom seen around
Rhyolite. Most men in town wore fedoras, derbies, or miner's caps. There was
also something else about the raggedy man . . . Then another boy yelled, and
the boy turned back to the game, barely in time to catch a pop fly. The
robber tied the sack around his shoulders so that it hung on his back. The
bicycle he'd parked earlier behind a dentist's office was sitting there
behind a barrel that had been placed to catch runoff water from the
building's drainpipe. He mounted the seat and began pedaling along Armagosa
Street, past the red-light district, until he came to the railyard. A
brakeman was walking along the track toward the caboose at the end of the
train. The robber couldn't believe his bad luck. Despite his meticulous
planning, fate had dealt him a bad hand. Unlike with his other robberies and
murders, this time he had been noticed by a stupid young boy. And now this
brakeman. Never had he encountered so many eyes that might have observed him
during his escape. There was nothing he could do but see it through. Luckily,
the brakeman did not look in the robber's direction. He was going from car to
car checking the grease in the axle boxes of the trucks and wheels the boxcars
rode on. If the brass sleeve that rotated inside the box did not receive
enough lubricant, the friction would heat the end of the axle to a dangerous
level. The weight of the car could break the axle off and cause a disastrous
crash. As
the robber cycled past, the brakeman did not bother to look up. He instead
went about his business, trying to complete his inspection before the train
departed for Tonopah and then on to Sacramento. Already, the engineer was
looking at his gauges to make sure he had enough steam to move the heavy
train. The robber hoped the brakeman would not turn back and witness him
entering his private boxcar. Quickly, he unlocked and slid open the door. He
threw the bicycle inside and then climbed a small ladder up to the door, dragging
the heavy money sack over the threshold. Once inside the boxcar, the
robber peered down the length of the train. The brakeman was climbing aboard
the caboose, which housed the train crew. There was no sign he'd witnessed
the robber enter the boxcar. Secure inside his palatial car,
the robber relaxed and read a copy of the Rhyolite Herald.
He could not
help but wonder what the paper would print the following day about the bank
robbery and the killing of its manager and teller. Again, as he had so many
times earlier, he felt no remorse. The deaths never entered his mind again. Later, besides the mystery of
how the robber/killer had escaped without a trace, the other puzzle was the
wagon found outside of town on the road toward Bullfrog. The wagon was empty
and appeared to have been driven by a dummy. The posse that chased it down
was mystified. Sheriff Josh Miller did put two
and two together, but his speculation went nowhere. Nothing made sense. The
desperado left no clues. The robbery and murders in Rhyolite
became another enigma that went unsolved. While
there’s a predictability in every Cussler novel that can satisfy and annoy
readers at the same time, the momentum of The Chase
and the introduction of new characters brought new reading pleasure. Steve
Hopkins, December 20, 2007 |
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Go to Executive Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the January 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The Chase.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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