Need You Now by James Grippando

book

The question to start us off today is what makes a good thriller. The answer is somewhat annoying. The way in which the content is delivered must thrill the reader. In other words, as in the majority of genres, the plot must be dynamic and persuade the readers to carry through to the end. It always starts with a sympathetic protagonist getting into what appear to be serious difficulties. After some exploration, it becomes obvious that, unless something is done, these problems will get increasingly more dangerous. Naturally, things then do grow more dangerous until we arrive at the end and there’s a fight between the protagonist and the antagonist. As a magic formula, you will find this applied in science fiction, espionage and all the other genres where there are plenty of “action” scenes. This is not to say there cannot be social comment but it does imply that “literary” novels are unlikely to qualify as thrillers. While psychological thrillers and horror novels do explore the minds of the primary characters, the author’s intentions are rather different. In a thriller, the protagonists are usually either under siege or they must go on some form of quest which often includes solving crimes. In both scenarios, time is limited so the protagonists must survive until dawn (vampires are less dangerous when the sun shines) or find the evidence and so trigger the release of the hostages, and so on. In literary novels, the psychology of the characters and the exploration of themes of social importance are usually as important as, if not more important than, the action.

 

Need You Now by James Grippando is up-to-date in its content. We’re into the world of Ponzi schemes and begin with the collapse of a large fund. In the real world, Bernard Madoff braved the firestorm of anger and is currently serving 150 years in jail. In the book, our fraudster decides to commit suicide which leaves fewer opportunities to discover where all the money has gone. In a prologue, one of the men running a feeder operation is murdered. This is a signal that not all those with large amounts of cash sitting around looking for a safe investment opportunity are nice people. There can be drug cartels and other determined groups anxious to recover the money lost. At this point we meet our two young people. Both are employed by the International Bank of Switzerland and they have been lovers while working together in Singapore. As a subplot, James Grippando plays the on/off relationship game. After all, it’s somewhat stressful when someone threatens to shoot you in the head unless you come up with $2 billion — obviously loose change for those working in Swiss banks.

James Grippando resting his left arm

 

Unfortunately, the interest in the financial plot is rather thrown away, although there’s actually a very nice idea based on the takeaway menus from some Chinese restaurants for encoding a “message”. The need for action prevails over the more cerebral world of commercial fraud. We therefore have Thuggee-style assassinations with different types of tool for strangulation and other uses, and the inevitable shootings to build up the body count. Threats only seem real to our protagonists if they are increasingly surrounded by death. Frankly, most of the plot is recycled as people are revealed as having mob connections or general levels of corruption as their motivation. There are the inevitable psychopathic killers and straight-arrow FBI agents (one reappearing from other novels by James Grippando). And, as we go on, the question increasingly asked is, “How high does all this go?” Once you rule out God — basically He gets to do what He wants without too many questions asked — that means there’s a White House connection in there somewhere with stock characters pulled out of central casting for crooked politicians and their minions.

 

What makes all this worse is the fundamental lack of clarity. There are different people living under an alias or using a code name, and all kinds of confusion when there may be two people going around killing people in the same way. Frankly, I partly gave up trying to understand all the details of this plot and this, in itself, suggests the plot is being made more complicated than it needs to be. I don’t mind working through complexity if the thrills are sufficiently compelling. Sadly, I really didn’t care much what happened to anyone in this. It’s one cliché after another with stock characters wandering around either biting bits off the scenery or cowering in a corner. In fact, our hero’s father has the right idea. From the outset, he’s largely kept sedated and so is unconscious throughout most of the action until the end when he recovers just enough to see how his son and daughter turned out.

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, Need You Now is a second-rate thriller with less than credible characters walking or running through a plot that lacks thrills. For someone who has had books at the top of the New York Bestseller list, this is a major disappointment. Unless you have no other choice on a wet afternoon, give this a miss and hope his next book is better.

 

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.