The Devil's Eye: An Alex Benedict Novel
by Jack McDevitt
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jack McDevittEdition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2008-11-04
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Ace Hardcover
Book Reviews of The Devil's Eye: An Alex Benedict Novel
Book Review: Best of the Benedict series, very vivid and engaging
Summary: 5 Stars
_The Devil's Eye_ is the latest and my opinion the best of the four Alex Benedict novels by Jack McDevitt. Though I don't think it necessary for a new reader to have read the previous three volumes in the series some of the references made to past events won't mean as much if they had not been read first.
As with the first three books, _The Devil's Eye_ focuses on two individuals, Alex Benedict, renown interstellar antiquities dealer, and his capable assistant Chase Kolpath. The book is told from Chase's point of view (as are all but the first book in the series if memory serves).
This book, though very much faithful to the feel and tone of the series, made some significant (and in no way negative) departures from the earlier novels. Earlier in the series it had always been some discovery, some famous archaeological artifact, lost treasure, ship, colony, or the like that got the story moving along, of the chance for Alex and Chase to both solve some endearing mystery that has bedeviled histories as well as perhaps to make some lucrative discoveries (as Alex is after all an antiquities dealer, not a museum curator).
This time however the initial thing that moves Alex and Chase to begin their latest adventures is not a famous lost ship, not a nearly legendary lost colony, but a celebrated horror writer. A living one, one that left a cryptic message for Alex and Chase when they were vacationing on Earth. The message was difficult to understand; all the two protagonists could tell was that this writer, a woman by the name of Vicki Greene, was nearly scared to death, believed herself to be in deep trouble, her recorded message closing with the rather worrying "God help me, they're all dead."
When they got back to their home on Rimway, Alex and Chase followed up on Ms. Greene, wanting more information, why she felt she was in such trouble, who was dead (and why), and why did she contact them of all people. To their great sadness they find that Vicki Greene had been mind-wiped. Of her own choice. Whatever horror that scared her so much, whatever it was that was going to kill (or had killed) people, it was now lost to them. Vicki Greene was effectively dead; her body and brain survived quite well and in time would reenter society as a brand new person with a new identity, with no memory whatsoever of her past (and also legally protected from being found and interviewed by those who knew her as Vicki Greene).
Having found that Vicki had left a very large deposit in Alex's bank account and intrigued by the mystery, Alex and Chase begin a very frustrating investigation. They found she left precious few clues as to what it was that had so scared her that she preferred a mind-wipe. All trails lead to a recent trip she had returned from, to the planet Salud Afar, one of the most isolated human-settled worlds, a planet on the very edge of the galaxy. Indeed, it was 20,000 light-years from the rim and practically in intergalactic space.
The planet had a history and atmosphere that might very well attract a horror writer. Settled for 4,000 years, it had been for nearly six hundred years under a worldwide government called the Bandahr, ruled by the same family, the Cleevs, until relatively recently when they were finally overthrown by a revolution and democracy took hold. There were many sites around Salud Afar where one might find haunted buildings, haunted forests, haunted rivers, and other such places, some directly relating to the Bandahr's actions, others perhaps as Alex speculates invented by the people "as an escape mechanism and maybe reassurance at the same time, because they know vampires don't exist...and they aren't nearly as terrible as what they face in real life but don't dare talk about."
Equally interesting to a horror writer is the nature of the night skies of Salud Afar. Knocked out of the galaxy in the distant past, the system that contained Salud Afar lost some of its members. Salud Afar lost its moon, so its skies do not have the light reflected off of any natural satellite. In fact, only two stars shine in the night sky. One is actually a planet, one known as Sophora, the other is a blue super giant, Callistra, located 1200 light-years away. Except for the luminous rim of the galaxy visible in dark skies in some areas, the sky is otherwise completely and utterly dark at all times. Only sapphire blue Callistra shone in the night, its rising and setting tied to many legends and folktales on Salud Afar.
Alex and Chase travel to Salud Afar, finding out just what had so scared Vicki Greene into take the drastic steps that she took. The investigations take them all over the world, meeting with a wide variety of people. More physical action takes place in this book than in the previous others (not a bad thing mind you). Interestingly, once they found out just what it is that so haunted Vicki, that seems like only the beginning of the story as our two heroes get deeply involved in a far scarier horror than some mere haunted forest.
A really outstanding book, I think it is the best of an overall excellent series. McDevitt made good use of some of the story elements of this particular fictional universe and the ending kept me guessing, I was never entirely sure how it was going to turn out.
Summary of The Devil's Eye: An Alex Benedict Novel
Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt is ?the logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke? (Stephen King).Interstellar antiquities dealer Alex Benedict receives a cryptic message asking for help from celebrated writer Vicki Greene?who has been mind-wiped. She has no memory of her past life, or of her plea for assistance. But she has transferred an enormous sum of money to Alex, also without explanation. The answers to this mystery lie on the most remote of human worlds, where Alex will uncover a secret connected to a decades-old political upheaval?a secret that somebody desperately wants hidden, though the price of that silence is unimaginable?
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