Gridlock by Sean Black

Gridlock features bodyguard Ryan Lock and is the third in a series, though the first I've read from Sean Black. If Black and I were writing buds and met in a cafe for some Java and critique, this is what I would bring to the table:

What Works

Black does a fantastic job of making his leads two-dimensional and sympathetic. Lock is believable as a bodyguard who recognizes muscle mass as a liability (it slows movement) and describes bodyguarding as "organized running away." His female lead, who hires Lock for protection from a stalker, is a sympathetic character. This in and of itself is a testament to Black's ability. Raven Lane is stripper and porn star, which doesn't invite the average reader to invest much emotionally--present company included. By giving Raven a mentally-disabled brother for whom she is the self-sacrificial sole caregiver and painting her with a tough facade over a fragile interior, Raven becomes quite likable and the reader feels the tension when her life is threatened. Even Black's secondary characters have depth: Lock's playboy business partner who drives a "pimpmobile" strikes up a special friendship with Raven's Down's Syndrome brother, and Lock's fiancee pushes past her typical female reaction to her fiance guarding a porn star to declare "every woman has the right to feel safe in her own home," and stands behind it by offering Raven shelter in the beach home where Lock has set up their home base while on assignments. Like all good writers, Black pushes beyond stereotypes and that which is expected. His dialogue is also generally believable, a trick which is still quite elusive to me, but which I suspect stems from being a practiced student of human behavior.

What Needs Work

Around every story exists a gossamer veil known as Willing Suspension of Disbelief. It is a cloak we willing wrap around ourselves and the story we are about to partake--be it movie, campfire tale, or the written variety. Any matter of fantastical claims will be believed, so long as they make sense within the world the storyteller has created. This cloak, however, is much like a spider's web--it has incredible tensile strength but is thin and easily pierced. Anything that distracts the reader from the story pokes a hole in the veil and allows light from the real world to creep in. These holes are a writer's enemy, as the reader may well escape through them, damning our tale to an eternity collecting dust on the proverbial shelf. Black's word choices pierce the story like daggers, dragging attention away from his story and onto him, leaving him standing small and exposed behind the veil like the wizard of Dorothy's acquaintence.

First, I suspect that Black is British or of other European background, because of his curious word choices like "kerb," "Hallowe'en," and "torch"--rather than flashlight. The story is set in L.A. and the verbiage is jarring against that backdrop. If a story is set in a different location than the reader's world, then native word choices can strengthen the reader's experience. Tana French does this masterfully in her novels set in Ireland, like In the Woods. At times, though I suspect not in Black's case, a writer will use these word choices as part of their characterization. Lock is, after all, trained by the British military. This is a tricky technique and rarely done well. It only works if it is restricted to that character's speech and direct thoughts, not in the narration in general, unless the story is told in first person. Even with those restrictions, the technique must be applied with a light touch, or it becomes evident that the writer is cramming in as much authenticity as possible, leaving an effect as believable as the fishing nets decorating the walls of a seafood restaurant in Illinois. Writers should note Diana Gabaldon's The Outlandish Companion as a guide, which she points out is loaded with scads of historical research that never made it into her historical fiction novels because it didn't serve the story. Every word must justify its existence in terms of its ability to carry the story. Every word, no exceptions.

Which leads me to Black's other error in terms of word choice--a seductive error, but a lethal one nonetheless. Listen, I'm a shameless word-hussy, too, and no doubt my neighbor Colleen is still raising her eyebrow over my use of "gossamer" in the paragraphs above, but unusual words must be applied in the context of a story with great care. I don't get the sense Black is trying to appear smart and I'd bet he's just a big nerd like me that actually uses ridiculous words like "ebullient" in every day conversation. The only writer I've ever seen consistently pull this off in print in Dean Koontz, and since he's literally been publishing books for as long as I've been alive, the safest course of action is to save the fancy talk to deities who've populated the bestseller list for a few decades and not attempt it as mere mortals.

One Final Thought

I proceed with extreme caution to avoid any spoilers: another important aspect of the reader's relationship with the writer exists in the form of an unwritten, unspoken contract in which the writer promises all number of things, including consistencies in logic, not running the hero through with a blade on page 3 (George R. R. Martin notwithstanding), and tying up all loose ends. While it is important that writers push beyond the expected and make sure the plotline does not become overly predictable, there is a point where a line is crossed and the contract is breached in the name of novelty. It's arguable that Black may have crossed that line in this book, though each reader will have to decide for him/herself. Once the reader's trust is violated, it's virtually impossible to regain.

Gridlock is a bargain book at $3.99 for Kindle and is a good read. That Black has other novels available puts him in a key position to gain more readers from putting this book on special.