ARA Review by Cathy Derr of Final Notice

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Cathy Derr
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Joined: 03 Apr 2021, 08:33
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ARA Review by Cathy Derr of Final Notice

Post by Cathy Derr »

[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, Final Notice.]
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2 out of 5 stars
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Final Notice by Van Fleisher is a story about the invention of a new type of sports watch that can monitor the wearer’s vital signs and blood chemistry. The VT 2 watch has the capacity to monitor blood levels moment by moment and detect minute changes that can predict the wearer’s death within 10 to 30 days. As the story unfolds the reader witnessed he results of the watches’ alpha testing and its unique feature of alerting the wearer to his “Final Notice” that death is imminent. Along the way the story deals with multiple social, political, and societal issues.

Van Fleisher worked for TWA and then moved on to International Management Consulting. As part of his job he traveled extensively and is familiar with many cultures. This is his first novel and he states that it addresses his concerns with America’s approach to gun ownership and control.

Final Notice fails to deliver the promise of a fast-paced thriller in the opening chapter. The story hook is second hand; the protagonist, Vince Fuller, comes home after being pushed down in a parking lot. The reader never experiences the event or the terror that the character felt. Vince is upset but not upset enough for his wife Trudy to intuit that something has happened to him. The scene slows with telling narration about Trudy’s folk singing and their dog’s heritage as a Corgi. The only hook to pull the reader forward is a television news report about a nursing home shooting. The reader does not jump into the story “in medias res” as would be expected for a page turning thriller but instead eases in through general conversation with the character and his wife and television viewing.

The story premise is a good one on the surface but there are several flaws with the world building. A “Final Notice” implies that there has been a prior notice given before the final notice, not so in the story. Also, The VT2 watch is a sports watch but the test group demographic of 65 to 90 is all wrong for testing the type of people who are interested in sport watches. People of this age would be more interested in a medical alert watch. The VT2 watch has advanced monitoring capacity but the reader never knows how the data it collects is analyzed to the extreme that a watch can predict the time of a character’s death. Even very competent physicians can’t predict certain death with such accuracy.

The reader is introduced to Vince Fuller and his wife Trudy and follow them through the story as the view news reports and interact with their friends and family. They are the main protagonists but there does not seem to be a clear antagonist. Is it the watch itself, the people wearing the watch, circumstance, the NRA, or society?

Much of the story is written primarily in an omniscient POV with way too much political commentary, lecturing, and obvious product promotion. Occasionally there is a shift to the third person POV but never close enough to start feeling emotionally attached to any of the characters.

The stakes seem low for a thriller. The reader is privy to information two steps before the characters and merely watches as they struggle to discover the truth, if there is any truth to be found. The pacing was dragged down especially during the telling narration of the shootings and not an immediate showing of the events.

With experience in the medical field, I found the characters’ responses to their “Final Notice” a bit unbelievable. There was no indication that they went through the five stages of grief that is commonly associated with being informed of a fatal diagnosis. The reader must wonder why an 89-year-old man in poor health living in a nursing home would find his final notice so disturbing he would go on a shooting spree. The reader is told that part of the notice involves an alert to see your doctor. Why grab your gun when you can take a ride to the emergency room instead?

There are moments in the story where Van Fleisher gets close to displaying the type of humor found in Carl Hiaasen’s novels, but never quite gets there. The final climax contains the promise of the Hiaasen type of insane imagery but falls short due to over telling instead of showing.

Due to the poor pacing and failure to engage the reader into the action scenes I am reluctant to give Final Notice a rating of 2 out of 5 stars.

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