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The Devil's Eye (2008)

by Jack McDevitt(Favorite Author)

3.91 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0441016359 (ISBN13: 9780441016358)

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Ace Hardcover

series

Alex Benedict

review 1: I've read a number of McDevitt's books and this one is certainly enjoyable as good escapist fun, but I didn't find it as suspenseful or awe-inspiring as some of his earlier books (Chindi, Omega). Set in the far distant future, Alex Benedict, who is a dealer in human and alien antiquities, and his assistant/pilot Chase Kolpath receive a cryptic plea of assistance from Vicki Greene a famous author of horror novels. But by the time they are able to answer her plea, they discover the woman's mind has been wiped and she has been given a new identity, a procedure usually reserved for criminals or people suffering from severe psychological trauma. The first two thirds of the book involve Benedict and Kolpath following leads, attempting to find out why the author would choose to... more have such a procedure done on herself. It's an intriguing mystery and McDevitt sets up one cliff-hanging incident after another, which he then fairly quickly resolves. The mystery is solved about two thirds of the way into the book and then the rest of the novel deals with Benedict and Kolpath aiding in the situation that Vicki Greene discovered. I think one of the problems with a book that is part of a series, is that you know the two main characters of the story, in this case, Alex and Chase, will survive or outwit whatever the author throws in their path, otherwise the series would be over. Because their lives never seem to be really at stake, some of the suspense is drained away. As I mentioned earlier, this book is good escapist fun, but I did at times get the feeling that McDevitt was writing this strictly by the numbers, in other words it felt somewhat formulaic, like he could have written this in his sleep.
review 2: Wow, I really liked this one! It's a novel in the Alex Benedict/Chase Kolpath series, but Chase is far and away the star in this one. Archaeology takes a back seat to contemporary mystery, but politics and cultural relations are also examined. Alex and Chase set off to discover what happened to Vicki Greene, a famous horror fiction writer, and each chapter is headed by an excerpt from one of her books. Along the way there are lots of interstellar adventures, cosmic disaster, political intrigue, and negotiation with telepathic (!) aliens. There's a brief, poignant coda at the end that was amazingly thought-provoking. This was the best hard-sf novel that I've read in years. less

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