A book Uncle Jim threw against the wall, and why he threw it.
The book is
The Northeast Kingdom by Peter Collinson. The sell-line on the front cover is: "One prison is about to experience a riot and jailbreak. One town is about to learn about fear and survival."
Near as I can tell it's first (and so-far only) novel. I picked it up off the shelf in a bookstore, because I do that sometimes if a book appeals in some way. I like mystery/thrillers, this one is set near where I live, and the cover is a grabber. So I bought one.
And I started to read it. It started well.
The story is set in "Gilchrist, Vermont," a fictional town. Based on internal evidence it would be somewhere around where Island Pond, VT, is really located.
I was perfectly willing to believe that there was such a town (although I'd be familiar with it if it were real, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief that far).
I'm willing to believe that there was a SuperMax penitentiary in that town -- prisons are getting built in all sorts of rural areas. Heck, there's talk of building another one over in Berlin, NH. I was willing to suspend my disbelief.
This breakout is set in the midst of a howling blizzard, so the town is cut off. To aid to the being-cut-off, the villains have hijacked the town snowplows, so no one can get in or get out.
Even though, through local knowledge, I know that just about every 4x4 pickup truck in town would have a plow blade attached, I was willing to give 'em that one. I was willing to suspend my disbelief.
So, why did I throw this book across the room?
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
SPOILER WARNING
Quite early on in the narrative, the Head Bad Guy decides to tell one of the townspeople how he managed to escape (and get his band of equally evil and depraved criminal followers out too): His henchmen on the outside had drugged the guards by introducing drugs into their groceries over the preceding weeks. The guards had all gone unconscious at the same time, and our villains escaped!
And this brought me to the question of how in the heck did they know which guard had Wheaties for breakfast, and which one had nothing but coffee, and which one had a fried egg, toast, and orange juice; and how did they drug the right package with exactly the right amount; and how did they arrange it that the guard, and only the guard, ate from that package, and ate from that package for the first time ever on
that day; and how did he arrange it that no one would be running late and decide to skip breakfast; and how did he know far enough in advance that a blizzard was going to hit on
that day, so he could have his outside henchmen get to the various folks' shopping trips a week, two weeks, or even a month in advance?
And which the heck drug is it that you can eat at some time in the morning, that will produce rapid-onset unconsciousness at a specified time later that day, with no symptoms beforehand?
At that point the suspenders of my disbelief snapped.
The real sorrow of it was this: There was
no reason whatsoever for the villain to explain how he escaped. He was monologuing (as they put it in
The Incredibles). He could have left it mysterious. All we really needed to know is that he got out;
how isn't a required element. We can assume that it was something Intensely Clever. The story doesn't even start until he and his band of criminals show up in town. No viewpoint character was around for the actual breakout. So to add a bit of icing to the blunder, this particular episode of over-explaining was a huge infodump Telling Not Showing.
Arrrgh!
I threw the book against the wall.
I keep meaning to finish it, but... it's been five years now. I don't think I will.