Faces Of The Gone by Brad Parks
My Rating: 3/5 Stars
Reading over half of a novel while hyped up on cough drops and missing a night’s sleep because you’ve been traveling for approximately 20 hours, as you fly into and out of Chicago (in the middle of a winter storm) and out of Boston (before the big one hits) and you end up being stuck on parked planes for a total of three hours (added up from two occasions) and add a Las Vegas redeye to your traveling regime may not have been the best course of action for my retention ability, but FACES OF THE GONE managed to help me keep my sanity, prevented me from screaming at gate agents and flight attendants and fellow travelers and relentless chatterboxes and unhappy babies and also kept me from hurling myself out of a plate glass window and onto the tarmac in front of a 737. So it has that going for it.
Carter Ross may suck at relationships and cry in front of female companions with virtually no provocation, but he still manages to have a certain charm and debonair nature, even if he has trouble getting laid from a woman who wears a biological clock around her left wrist. And he may not always know where the story is going, but he can expertly run in place or skip a meal or two if it gets him a little closer to the prized front page. He may not always have the best way of communicating either, along with a few of his companions and colleagues, but at the end of the day he’s still the best man for the job.
Even if he manages to get himself in the middle of some serious shit, he’s not about to back up or back down. He injects a bit of wit in Newark, instead of the current drug of choice, and he finds himself amidst a cast of characters that need little introduction. If I ever find myself on the streets of Newark, I’ll barrel through stoplights and intersections in an armored vehicle with bulletproof glass and an MK47 riding shotgun.
The story didn’t click for me right away, but once I shoved my hand in The Stuff, I managed to find my high just fine and even found myself enjoying the ride, despite the traveling situation that had developed between Massachusetts and New Mexico. Stuffing your carryon full of books helps ease this pain tremendously.