Target Alaska
09/16/13 08:43 PM
Lidia & Charles LoPinto wrote Target: Alaska thirteen years ago, before 9-11 turned the word “terrorism” into part of our daily vocabulary. Now, the authors are re-releasing their novel.
This quick-moving story has a multi-layered plot that merges environmental crime with nuclear terrorism—a dirty business that threatens the pristine waters off Alaska. The protagonists are a rumpled FBI agent whose career is threatened by his drinking, and a dedicated, but flighty, EPA investigator whom we never really learn enough about, to know why she does some of the things she does. Every time a new man looks her way, she seems eager to date him. The only man she’s not interested in—is her partner.
This is a good read, but it could use the help of a proofreader to fix some minor problems and get rid of the excessive exclamation points that take the reader out of the story. The late Elmore Leonard advised writers to use no more than two or three exclamation points for every 100,000 words of prose. It’s a really tough rule for a writer to follow, but like anything else, too much of something diminishes its value.