Saturday, May 31, 2008
Nobody Move, This Is A Review:
CHASIN’ THE WIND by Michael Haskins
Josh Schrank
For anyone who has
visited Key West, or any Caribbean island, the first thing
they notice is a phenomenon known as ‘island time’. Things
travel at their own pace. If a beer takes 10 minutes to get to
you, so be it. If you have to wait in line 15 minutes while
the clerk and a shopper chat, life goes on. What visitors
don’t realize is that ‘island time’ is just one outward sign
of an entire lifestyle which is totally foreign to most
Americans and Europeans. While non-islanders see it as
rudeness and slothfulness, locals wonder what all the rush and
demands are.
Michael Haskins gives us
a glimpse of ‘island time’ and island life in his debut novel,
CHASIN’ THE WIND, which is set in and around Key West’s ‘Old
Town’. With ‘Mad Mick’ Murphy, a freelance journalist, as our
tour guide, we are exposed to the sultry lazy days and the
laid-back bar hopping island nights that most of us secretly
envy. One would almost expect Hemingway to walk through the
door and start an argument at the bar.
Mick, who has a
supposedly violent past, has spent most of his career writing
about Central and South American foreign affairs. He has made
Key West his hermitage from the ghosts of his former life in
California when he is suddenly confronted with violence and
the need for revenge upon discovering the murder of one of his
sailing buddies. Haskins takes us on a wild-wind journey of
inept local police, mysterious agents from competing
‘agencies’, Cuban espionage and soulless murderers. The story
rushes you along the surface so fast you think you are sailing
on the Gulf Stream.
The downside to this is
that, because CHASIN’ THE WIND is a thriller, Haskins gives
the novel the feeling of a New York minute. Mick Murphy is
someone you want to get to know, someone you want to relate
with; however, we are never really given the chance.
The end of CHASIN’ THE
WIND has sequel stamped all over it, and I really hope that
that is true. Michael Haskins has the wonderful ability to
evoke the sights and smells of the island out of thin air, and
it doesn’t hurt that he has Mick drinking Jamesons like most
of us drink water. Haskins just needs to give us the same
feeling for his characters, and to let the ‘Mad Mick’ Murphy
series find some island time, so we can get to know the
characters, their interconnections, and the plots better.
Posted by Declan Burke
at 12:13 AM |
