The Flaxen Femme Fatale, by John Zakour
Book Review by Joshua Palmatier
Have you read this book?
This is the sixth book in the series, and the fact that I'm still reading tells you something. The books are about "the last PI on Earth," set in a very tongue-in-cheek future with a definite old-style pulp/detective noir feel.
In this book, Zach, the last remaining private eye, is hired by the government to find and retrieve the "flaxen femme fatale," a genetically-engineered woman named Natasha. She's escaped from her training ground and the military fears her powers, which are extensive, and the fact that Natasha isn't really trained in how to control them. If she gets angry or annoyed or even peeved, her thoughts can kill. So Zach and his trusty holographic sidekick HARV (hardwired into his brain) and enthusiastic intelligent gun Gus head off to investigate and bring her back.
But, of course, not everything is as it seems.
These books are essentially just fun reads. There's some nice laid back humor, a fast-paced adventure, with some snide little commentary about our world and our ideals thrown in for kicks along the way. Nothing serious is heavy handed; it's really all about the ride. The future world is just too over the top for anything else, really.
This adventure wasn't as thrilling or perhaps as interesting as some of the past books in this series, but it was still engaging and at no point did I get bored enough to set the book aside. In fact, there were a few surprises, especially toward the end. (I can't really mention those surprises without spoiling some of the book though.)
I don't really have any complaints about the writing or the plot or the characters or anything like that. As I said, it was a fun ride and you can't take anything all that seriously. I do have an issue with the fact that this book has so many typos, such as missing words, words written written twice (yes, that was done on purpose), etc. I'd say that this book wasn't copy edited, or somehow the copy edits didn't make it into the final published version. I know from experience that you can't eliminate every typo, even during extensive copy edits, but the number of errors here was just too much, to the point where I got annoyed. Again, this has nothing to do with the quality of the writing or the story, but it does destroy a little bit of the fun of reading.
If you can read over those typos though, and enjoy the story, then the book is good. Not the best out of the series so far, but not the worst either, and it certainly didn't make me want to give up the series. In fact, I'm already reading the seventh book (and I can already tell that it's going to be better than this one).
Joshua Palmatier/Benjamin Tate
www.joshuapalmatier.com
www.benjamintate.com
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