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2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
It's all about the characters Dec 19, 2005
By P. Twohy
"Satanic Verses," Salman Rushdie's remarkable book, starts with a dialogue that is perhaps my favorite novel opening. Only after some time does the reader realize that the dialogue is occurring between two people who are falling from a great height.
It is a remarkable way to start a book -- it captures the reader's attention, and holds fast.
E.E. Williams' new book "Tears in the Rain" opens in a similar fashion. The scene is perhaps not as fantastical as Rushdie's. (But then, no one is likely to put Williams under threat of a religious fatwa calling for death, except perhaps the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.)
If the opening is a grabber, the ending is a surprise, though perhaps not a total one to someone who expects a book of this nature to twist relentlessly to the end. But that's not the point. What's interesting about this novel, as in the best of the Chandler/Hitchcock/Hammett works, is the layering of characterizations that begins with the opening scene and builds through to the end. The novel is really about what makes the two or three main characters tick -- something that isn't clear to the characters themselves, or the reader of course, until the final few pages. That, really more than the plot twists, is the real mystery of "Tears in the Rain."
It's worth noting that one of the "characters" is the city of Miami, where the story takes place. I'm not sure Williams intended that. But the fact is, a novel like this works best in a city with idiosyncrasies -- and few have them like Miami, in my experience. (Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria comes to mind as an example of city as character. But in this genre, even Chandler's L.A. seems benign compared with south Florida.) In any case, Miami is a city Williams seems to know well, and he makes good use of that knowledge.
I'd recommend "Tears in the Rain" as a great read by a fire on a cold winter day or tucked in bed with a hot chocolate on a frosty evening. Maybe not so good on a sunny beach if it's even slightly reminiscent of Florida.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Williams Stages an Enthralling Paradise of Scandals Feb 18, 2006
By Benjamin Tomkins
If America is a melting pot, Florida's an experimental fondue. The state's churning stew of relentless heat and drug money and snowbirds and retail kitsch and Cuban immigrants and beach bums and football mania and retirees and political corruption and glam nightlife coalesce in absurd juxtapositions.
Leave it to Carl Hiaasen, the novelist and veteran Florida journalist, to capture the state's ethos. He's said, "The Sunshine State is a paradise of scandals teeming with drifters, deadbeats and misfits drawn here by some dark primordial calling like demented trout."
Writers who tackle Florida's spectacle do so with tongue firmly planted in cheek. From Dave Barry to Randy Wayne White, Edna Buchanan to Jimmy Buffet, they all have an evolved sense of the ridiculous rooted in Florida's bazaar of possibility.
In his debut mystery novel, "Tears in the Rain," E.E. Williams announces himself as a new voice of South Florida. Armed with the requisite dry sensibility and an intimate sense of place that saturates the story like Everglades' humidity, Williams stages an enthralling paradise of scandals.
Our guide through Miami's money, sex and greed is tenderfoot detective Noah Greene. A rustbelt castaway drawn to South Florida as a grunion to a full moon, Greene flails spastically upon arrival and finds himself caught in the same net with more than a few demented trout.
Private investigation is Greene's latest stab at reinvention. He's harbored this dream for years, but at best, it's half-baked: he's had one client and a non-paying one at that. In exchange for rent, he repairs bicycles and can't scrape together the cash for a detective license.
That he's offered a second case surprises him. Other than relentless references to Philip Marlowe, Jake Gittes, Sam Spade and other fictional private dicks, Greene is laughably ill-equipped for this work.
His new client balks at his inexperience, but still signs him up to find a missing person. As he begins the search, he's a feather, drifting Forrest-Gump style on the currents of the case. If he weren't so green, he'd spot the looming ambush.
Rife with intrigue, shady real estate deals and swamp-running malcontents, the plot of "Tears in the Rain" is engaging, but the meat of the story is Noah Greene's education.
We know from the prologue that he'll end up face down on dingy, mildewed carpet, blood pooling from two bullet holes in his skull, but still talking. Knowing up front that he'll dig far enough into the case to get himself shot pulls us through the first chicanes of Greene's learning curve.
Greene's one real skill is friendship. He's collected a colorful cast of Miami misfits, including a crusty sportswriter, a homeless vet and a retired gay NFL player. They carry him through some rough spots in the case, and mirrored in their reactions we see Greene's growing assurance as he evolves from bumbler to hesitant gumshoe to likely investigator displaying flashes of confidence and intuition.
As we approach the book's climax, a battered and bruised Greene hasn't just untangled a web of deceit; he emerges as a credible detective.
Williams is already at work on the second novel in this series and its fun to imagine Greene's future. A few books down the line, readers will return to "Tears in the Rain" to rediscover the first hints of Greene's slow-burn temper, the sadness of the life he left in Cleveland and his relentless wise assing.
Noah Greene's not Travis McGee or Doc Ford yet, but he's got potential; catch him on the way up.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Fantastic story-telling Jan 14, 2006
By L. J. Morris
Can you have a classic film noir-like story set in the unrelenting Miami sun? Apparently, yes. E.E. Williams' "Tears in the Rain" is a salute to all those great movie classics and novels that feature great dialog, plot twists and gut-wrenching action. Throw in a mysterious dame, a missing man and a detective who wants to be Sam Spade, and you've got a real story. Williams does a terrific job of fleshing out his characters and their complicated relationships without making them cliche, taking the reader to a side of Florida most of us have never seen. Despite the brilliant sunlight, the book is filled with dark shadows. His characters are flawed and troubled creatures, but we end up loving (or in some cases, hating and fearing) every one of them.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Riveting...I couldn't put it down Dec 23, 2005
By Anne Brandt
If you like action-packed mysteries with lots of twists and turns, this book is for you. Williams allows the reader to watch the likeable, but lost, main character as he peels away the multi-faceted layers of corruption in Miami that his new client has led him to. He eventually unravels the crime, and learns a lot about his own depth of character in the process.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
A fast-paced thriller Dec 22, 2005
By John J. Murphy
Williams has created a taunt, twisting story of a bumbling, guilt-ridden detective who falls for his client - his second client ever - and gets dragged by the heart through the underside of Miami. Good characters, fast action and enough switch-backs in the plot to keep the reader guessing. A fun, fast read from a writer in the Chandler/Hammett school. I highly recommend it.
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