DEMOLITION ANGEL (22 april 2004)
By their nature, some subjects are more suitable for thrillers than others.
The subject of Robert Crais's novel Demolition Angel is among the most suitable subjects one can imagine: the bomb squad.
The blurb at the back of the book says:
Carol Starkey is struggling to pick up the pieces of her former life as LA's finest bomb squad technician. Three years have passed since the explosion that shattered her life and now, fuelled by alcohol and prescription drugs, she's doing time as a detective with LAPD's Criminal Conspiracy Section.
Then a seemingly innocuous bomb call turns into a charred murder scene. Carol is put on the case - and quickly discovers an intent behind a series of explosions that is far more disturbing than it first appeared. Each attack is designed specifically to kill bomb technicians, and now Carol faces the most intense and personal fight of her life ...
Right from page one, the book grasps the reader's attention since it begins with an operation to dismantle a bomb, a breathtaking affair of course.
English not being my native language, I had some trouble understanding the large number of typically American words and abbreviations, like Tagamet , dupe, crapper, Dumpster, legit, a suburban , IAG and SID.
Like wise, I had some trouble understanding expressions like:
He gave him the cracker's hayseed grin.
We can bag this puke.
What kinda mook ...
I cannot really advise this book to someone whose native language is not English and who is an inexperienced reader of American English.
Here and there, I read sentences which were rather confusing, such as this one:
She didn't like the little questions that had no answers. They were like reconstructing a bomb, only to find that there are wires that lead nowhere. You couldn't pretend they didn't exist. Wires always led somewhere.
This looks simple, but the more you think about it, the more paradoxical it becomes.
Still, I found the entertaining value of the book worth buying and reading it.
