On the Line by S.J. Rozan
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

"Focus! Christ, Smith, focus"

What an extreme disappointment! This is my tenth novel by S.J. Rozan, the author of remarkably good Winter and Night and Stone Quarry , an author whom until now I would have trusted not to be able to produce bad novels. Even the weaker installments in the series, for instance, Mandarin Plaid, were at a decent level. Alas On the Line (2010) is a completely different story. Juvenile, utterly implausible, and brimming with clichés worthy of the greatest Masters of Formulaic Thrillers.

Bill Smith is practicing Brahms piano sonata when his phone rings: Lydia Chin manages to say a few words but then the kidnapper interrupts. An electronically altered voice tells Mr. Smith that he has 12 hours to find Lydia. Otherwise she dies. The kidnapper, once wronged by Smith, is now exacting his revenge. Our hero is invited to a game: he will be offered a series of clues and if he does not solve even one of the puzzles, Lydia will be killed. Yeah, as lame as that. If you are new to the series: Lydia is Bill's detection business partner, and also his unrequited (as far as we know) love. Please read better books by S.J. Rozan than this one. This mess is not worth your time.

Mr. Smith enlists the help of Linus, Lydia's "kid cousin", a teenager computer whiz, and his girlfriend, Trella, who is "barely old to drink". Linus and Trella are accompanied by a canine superhero named Woof. So Smith, Linus, Trella, and Woof are the crew to battle the Super Evil Villain in the series of puzzles. Later in the story they are joined by a "piece-of-work pimp and his boys." I am not sure even Mr. Patterson would stoop so low with the plot.

And now combine the canine-enhanced juvenile crew with murders of Chinese prostitutes, the murders being parts in the puzzles set by the Super-Evil Villain. Combine the human drama of torture and death with the (maybe unintended) humor inherent in the composition of the good guys' team. The combination is putrid.

The clues left by the ArchVillain are usually booby-trapped. When the dramaturgy of the story requires explosion, BAM! There it is. Obviously Mr. Smith knows what the booby traps are. So lame! The puzzles are based on loose associations related to popular culture. Of course, Smith and the crew are instantaneously able to decrypt all the references. It reminds me of the most atrocious cliché of the last 50 years of thrillers. Suppose a computer geek needs to get into a passworded computer system: the genius sits at the keyboard, thinks for seven seconds, makes a guess, and the guess is right!

I would like to say: FOCUS!, S.J. ROZAN, FOCUS!!!

One and a half stars.

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