Reviewed by: Keith Nixon
Genre: Psychological Thriller / Short
Story Collection
Approximate word count: 10-15,000 words
Availability
Click
on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or
Smashwords store
Author:
Jacques
Vandroux is an engineer and so travels a lot. Writing is his way of filling his
time productively. He has written several successful novels.
Description:
Three short
stories, all with the same premise. A man is seated in the business class
section of a plane, the space next to him is unoccupied. Who will place
themselves there and what will happen?
Appraisal:
To
be fair each of the stories does begin with the man, Sebastien, seated in business
class. However, the back story differs.
In
the opening tale, The Contract, we
learn a French lawyer (not until we are 19% through the story do we learn his
name) has been negotiating with a company. Unfortunately the deal, unknown to
him, is duplicitous. The Frenchman fears for his life as the business he was
working with seems to be headed up by a dangerous man. A woman, just prior to
departure, sits next to him.
The
next, Fear of Flying, opens again
with Sebastien seated next to Sophie. However no mention is made of the
previous scenario. Sebastien instead recounts a previous problem he had when
flying.
Snow in New York produces the same seating plan, but
this time the passengers had been trapped for a couple of days in a hotel due
to snow. Sophie and Sebastien had spent the time between getting to know each
other. Sophie gets onto the plane, but this turns out to be a dream and an
irritating woman is in Sophie’s place.
They
are an okay read, however in the 2nd and 3rd stories all
the time spent building the premise of The
Contract is eliminated. So on each occasion we have to go through another
process of learning about Sebastien’s situation. I struggled to get to know the
characters, having to relearn about them three times. As a result the characters
were sketchy and therefore I couldn’t connect with the tales. In the end I
didn’t really care.
Impending Departure was originally published in French.
The translation into English was well done.
FYI:
None.
Format/Typo Issues:
Issues with
layout of speech.
Rating: ** Two Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment