Genre: Thriller
Description:
“A Horrible Accident or Brilliantly Planned Social Statement
Ann Miller still grieves deeply five months after her son and only
child was killed during the Virginia Tech mass shooting. A lifelong gun rights
advocate, she works passionately as an executive for a gun rights organization,
the American Rifle Society.
One morning, Miller opens an anonymous package containing an AK-47
assault rifle sent to her ARS department. Entering an executive boardroom to
deliver the assault weapon to her boss during a departmental meeting, she
sprays 50 bullets in a matter of seconds killing 13 of her colleagues.
Two FBI agents with vastly different personalities and investigative
approaches lead the ultra-high-profile investigation to determine if the mass
shooting was a horrible accident as Miller contends or a brilliantly planned
and executed mass murder to bring worldwide attention to the destructive
capability of automatic and semi-automatic weapons like killed her son. As the
FBI's investigation fails to uncover evidence that Miller pre-planned the
shooting, the ARS spins the mass shooting events to characterize Miller as a
mentally ill woman hellbent on avenging her son's death.
Having killed everyone in the boardroom, Miller stands trial for 13
first-degree murders as both the perpetrator and only witness. A surprise piece
of evidence surfaces at the end of the trial which renders a verdict but still
leaves questions unanswered.”
Author:
Baird Smart grew up in Winnetka, Illinois, a northern suburb of
Chicago before leaving for college and eventually working in the TV industry in
Los Angeles and Chicago and later working as a real estate broker in the
Chicago area. This is his first novel.
Appraisal:
There are some parts of this novel that I like a ton, while there are
other aspects that bothered me every step of the way while reading it. You may
or may not react the same.
Let’s get the bad out of the way first.
One of the things I look for in books self-published or published by a
small press is whether it received adequate proofreading. If I take note of too
many issues while reading a book I’ll mention it if I see more than a handful
and if it exceeds a certain number (okay, 20 if you care for the exact amount)
then I’ll knock my review down to 3 stars or less, depending on other aspects
of the book. This book didn’t hit that second number, but it was pushing it.
The vast majority of the issues I flagged were homonyms, saying deep-seeded
when it should be deep-seated, or summery (an adjective describing something as
summer-like) instead of summary. Not to mention the “right to bare assault
weapons” which I guess means that people may or may not be able to carry (aka
bear) arms, but they have the right to take the clothes or covering off of
their firearms.
I also thought the author had a tendency to describe things in way too
much detail and flowery language, burning way too many words on description
that is much more detailed than is typically needed. (Yeah, sometimes I’m
guilty of being too wordy myself.) A short example is describing a room as
containing “30x48-inch break-room tables.” Does the size really matter? This
example is minor, but there are a lot more examples of this kind of thing, like
describing a video playing on a “seventy-two-inch, rear-screen projection
television surrounded by a semi-circle cluster of white hair and shiny bald
heads.” A little bit of this, at times, may help to set the scene, but it
reached the point where my brain was constantly saying “get on with the story.”
In spite of the issues above, I thought the foundational story of Ann
and what happened, a mystery for all involved for much of the book, was very
good. I think those of a particular political leaning might like this more than
others, but it should be thought provoking for all. I’m glad I gave this a read
in spite of the issues I had with the execution of telling the story.
Buy now
from: Amazon US Amazon UK
FYI:
Some adult language.
Format/Typo
Issues:
More proofreading issues than I like to see, but not quite enough to
knock a star off due to this issue. See discussion in appraisal section for
more details.
Rating: ****
Four Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words
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