The Law of Nines

Starred review from October 26, 2009
Science fiction author Goodkind takes a new approach to the modern-day thriller in this fantastic tale featuring Alex, a down-and-out artist set to inherit a fortune on his 27th birthday. The catch is that Alex is set to inherit his mother's insanity as well, which overcame her when she reached the same age. Mark Deakins proves a master storyteller; his strong performance shines with excellent stage presence from start to finish. Deakins speaks in a strong, commanding tone and is a virtuoso at accents and dialects—and Goodkind gives him plenty of each to play with. A Putnam hardcover (Reviews, June 22).

June 22, 2009
Bestseller Goodkind (Confessor
) ventures into thriller territory with results sure to please fans of his fantasy fiction. In the opening pages, Alex Rahl, the book’s unwitting hero, saves the beautiful Jax from being run down on the street in Orden, Neb., by a plumbing truck flying a pirate flag. Jax, who turns out to be from an alternate reality where evildoers are attempting to seize control of her civilization, has traveled to Nebraska to seek Alex’s help in saving her people. In Jax’s world, magic takes the place of technology, but on earth she’s stripped of her powers and forced to fight armed with only her trusty dagger. The author takes his time setting all this up, but once the story gets rolling, it’s a gripping ride as the bad guys whoosh in between their world, which remains unseen, and ours. Fantasy and thriller readers alike will find themselves swept along to the final confrontation and looking forward to the next installment.

Alex is a young artist with a family history of early death and mental illness. When he turns 27, he begins to understand why. THE LAW OF NINES has great potential as a fantasy thriller. At times it's tense and action packed, but these traits get lost in too much exposition and a tendency toward the silly. If ever a book were crying out for abridgment, it's this one. Particularly irritating is the character of Jax, a powerful woman from another world who arrives to help Alex and then handicaps him throughout much of the story like some nineteenth-century heroine in constant need of rest and rescuing. Mark Deakins cannot be faulted in his efforts to rescue this audiobook, but for all his valiance, it fails. C.A.T. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine