Official Review: Crimson Justice by Frank DeCaire
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Official Review: Crimson Justice by Frank DeCaire
Claire Unsworth, the administrator of Vanguard Spaceport on Mars, has just attended a conference with the topic “Bots in the Workplace.” People outside the conference building protest bots having the same rights as people. She hardly makes her way by them to catch her flight back home. Once she reaches her apartment, she realizes she had probably taken the wrong bag. Little does she know this bag will bring her one problem after another.
Foley McGregor is a cop who has been working in an undercover operation for about a year. Something must have blown up his cover because he is on the run and fears for his life. Being in a tight spot, he has no other option but to swap his luggage with that of a woman who has an identical bag. What will Claire make of the mysterious planner she finds in Foley’s bag? Will she and her old friend Ray get rid of the bad guys and solve the puzzle of the Digital Workers store addresses in the planner? Chased by dirty cops, hitmen, and powerful people, Claire and Ray find themselves in a countdown race for their lives.
Crimson Justice by Frank DeCaire is meant to be a sci-fi thriller with a detective plot. Unfortunately, it failed to come up to my expectations. Even if the air is unbreathable and the citizens have to live under a dome, life on Mars as described in the novel is much too similar to life on Earth. As a fan of science fiction, I was disappointed with the scarcity of details about life on a planet with a hostile environment. The detective investigation Claire and Ray get involved into is much more elaborate than the sci-fi elements, though. The plot has many twists and turns that are supposed to keep you tuned in. However, no matter the outcome of one situation or another, I was never truly taken by surprise. I always knew that the good guys will eventually win all confrontations.
On the plus side, the book reads quickly. The chapters are short and focus more on action rather than description. The novel had two main topics which I liked more than anything else about it. One topic refers to the controversies regarding the relationship between bots and humans. Since bots are robots looking exactly like humans, they could easily blend in and effortlessly replace people. The novel interestingly parallels a humanistic approach to bots with a materialistic one. If the former is based on the idea of equal rights for bots, the latter warns of the danger of reprogramming software and the use of bots for military, political, or financial purposes. The other major topic that I enjoyed tackles the issue of corruption and its knock-on effect on justice.
Even if Claire and Ray team up to get to the bottom of the planner problem, they are far from a perfect detective couple. There seems to be a lot of miscommunication between them; they settle for a plan only to break it soon afterwards. As for the bad guys, much of the time they are just that, “bad guys in grey suits.” I had a surreal feeling of being teleported in Men in Black. In many cases, the protagonists were running from bad guys dressed in grey suits. Sometimes, even the dialogues fell flat and unrealistic: “Security has the situation under control. The bad guy surrendered without a fight.” (p. 55) I also found the providential coincidences in the novel rather far-fetched. For example, Claire witnesses men in suits with machine guns entering her hotel, but she chooses to have lunch just across the street with her buddy Ray, whom she accidentally bumps into exactly at the right time.
All things considered, I am rating this book 2 out of 4 stars. I have deducted one star for all the weaknesses in the writing style that I mentioned earlier. The editing errors are responsible for the other missing star. There were mostly misspellings and punctuation mistakes that could be fixed with another round of proofreading and editing. Readers who enjoy action-based novels with a few sci-fi elements, manhunts, and clear endings will find Crimson Justice a decent read. There are some violent scenes, but they are not excessively graphic. The use of offensive words is sporadic, so I do not think more sensitive readers will be affected. As far as I am concerned, I would be willing to read other books written by the author if he insists more on the description of the setting and the character development.
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Crimson Justice
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Anyway, thank you for great review.
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Excellent review.
I love your honesty in your review.
But sci-fi novels aren't really my plug.
Thank you!