Criminal Paradise
Steven M. Thomas, . . Ballantine, $24.95 (249pp) ISBN 978-0-345-49781-9
This California noir, Thomas's first novel, fails to deliver on its promising opening. When smalltime crook Robert Rivers and his partner, Switch, rob the Cow Town, a restaurant owned by Orange County entrepreneur Lewis McFadden, they discover more than a lot of cash in the safe. A photograph of a naked Vietnamese girl who looks like an underage teenager suggests McFadden is into the flesh trade. While Switch is out of town, Rivers and his biker friend Reggie England break into McFadden's house, where they find the Vietnamese girl, Song, tied to a bed. After they bring Song back to Switch's place, England rapes her while Rivers is gone. Soon afterward, Rivers has sex with Song, who's actually 19, that might or might not be consensual. These scenes not only undermine sympathy for Rivers, they also conflict with the subtlety of earlier chapters. From then on—through Song's recapture by McFadden, a sex slave auction and an unconvincing final chapter involving the revelations of Rivers's landlady—overblown sex and violence hijack the plot.
Reviewed on: 12/03/2007
Genre: Fiction
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