by Joe Buffaloe
Daily Lobo
Suspense novels, more than any genre, have been overdone.
Why are they still so popular, then? Because the suspense formula is a proven winner. Put one or two compelling characters in a life-or-death situation involving criminals, mobsters, etc. or throw in a few surprising twists, and watch the book fly off the shelves at the store.
Unfortunately, A Necessary Evil, Robert Stricklin's first published novel, falls flat in terms of entertainment.
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In the book, publishing executive Michael Gray's wife is murdered by Leon Wendt, a "hard-core junkie," who is then found innocent at trial due to a technicality. Michael, who can't let go of the memory of his wife, is enraged at the lack of justice and decides to take matters into his own hands. He hires a hit man named Butch (short for "the butcher"), but calls off the killing at the last second and refuses to pay the fee. Along with his grief and guilt, Michael now has to worry about a disgruntled hit man.
The plot never involves much mystery, so all readers are left with is the question, "What will happen next?" The trouble is, not even that is hard to answer. The book includes too few surprises to keep you guessing, and the action can be predicted from a mile away.
It is unfair, though, to label this a suspense book alone. It functions better as a study of human behavior, written in a stream-of-consciousness style which allows us to see Michael's inner turmoil. We see grief and anger skew his judgment, and the real suspense is whether he will do the right thing or what he wants to do.
Fortunately for the book, he usually makes bad decisions. Unfortunately, I rarely care.
The psychological angle would be stronger if it were more complex. As it stands, Michael's grief, rage and fear, along with Butch's cold resentment and practicality, read more like fictional constructs than real emotions. Stricklin does not dig deep enough into his characters to transform them from idea to human.
Thematically, A Necessary Evil is ambitious enough. It studies the hazy differences between justice and revenge, law-abiding citizen and criminal. Michael, Butch and the man who killed Michael's wife all blur the lines between these, proving redeemable as often as they do flawed or evil.
However, it would take a major work to go anywhere new with these themes, and Stricklin's book offers little that hasn't been seen before. If you're looking for a book on the criminal nature of mankind, pick up Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, William Faulkner's Sanctuary or Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.
If, on the other hand, you're looking for a mildly suspenseful, somewhat well-rendered psychological thriller (that does have a surprisingly good ending), pick up A Necessary Evil - if it's on sale.
