THE EMPRESS FILE (26 december 2004)
Books by Henning Mankell are wonderful to read. But they have one drawback: the first book that you read after them usually has a very hard time to please you.
I had just read a short novel by Mankell - in a Dutch translation; that's why you won't find it discussed in this English-language weblog ( click).
The first book I read after it was John Sandford's The Empress File.
This after-Mankell-effect may have been part of why I liked this book less than Sandford's "Prey" novels. I can also imagine that I expected something different after reading the blurb at the back of the book:
When the cops of Longstreet, Mississippi see a black boy running away from them and clutching something in his hand, there's only one thought in their minds: bag-snatcher. So they shoot him in the back. Except, Darrell Clark isn't a thief, he's a computer-crazy fourteen-year-old, who was running home before his ice-cream melted.
When the predictable police cover-up begins, Darrell's friend, Marvel Atkins, decides it's time for the corrupt city government to go. Using Darrell's computer, she contacts the only two con-artists with the nerve to take on a whole city: Kidd, computer-hacker extraordinaire, and his partner and some-time lover, Lu-Ellen. To pull this off, the sting has to be perfect. And it will be, because if Kidd knows one thing, it's this: a corrupt city regime is about as stable as a house of cards. All he has to know is where to push ...
If you expected the killing of this Darrell Clark to be unravelled, you'd be disappointed. That's not what the book is about.
Most of the action takes place in the last quarter of the book. I found the pace of the book somewhat slow. By the way, the same goes for the computers that are described. A 486 PC may have been state-of-the-art in 1991. The almost drooling descriptions of the outdated hardware are hard to imagine for present-day readers.
The title refers to a card of the Tarot, but Sandford is rather ambivalent about these cards: his main character confesses he doesn't really believe in them. But at the same time it is suggested they have a predicting force.
If you want to read something by John Sandford and you have the choice, you'd better take one of his "Prey" novels. I think they are better value for your money.
