ARA Review by WD County of The Face of Fear

[WD County]

[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, The Face of Fear.]

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2 out of 5 stars

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The Face of Fear: A Powers and Johnson Novel by R.J. Torbert is a police procedural story set on Long Island, NY. It begins with the kidnapping of a millionaire’s adult daughter, but it quickly escalates into multiple murders in which the villains wear a Ghostface mask. The protagonists, Paul Powers and Bud Johnson, are police detectives trying to solve the ever-more complicated case. They work for Kevin Cronin, the police Detective-Lieutenant, who takes a very hands-on interest in the case. Since it’s a kidnapping that also crosses state lines into Connecticut, the FBI is also involved, and inevitable turf wars ensue. Complicating the case is the budding on-off roller-coaster romance between Paul and Rachelle Robinson, an aspiring journalist.


When I started reading this novel, I had high expectations. After all, it has an overall four-star rating from reviewers. Unfortunately, the book didn’t live up to my expectations. It didn’t even come close. Without giving away spoilers, here are the areas that I felt were weak:


Plot holes. Why did the kidnappers wait almost a week before demanding a ransom? Most ransom demands come within the 48 hours. Why are the kidnappers so upset about a news article that describes a possible theory of how the kidnapping took place? It shouldn’t matter. Similarly, why are the tweets by Rachelle so upsetting to the villains? They shouldn’t matter, either.


“Telling” instead of “showing.” The author misses several opportunities to provide gripping drama because he tells what the character is feeling instead of showing us through internal sensations and visceral descriptions.


Using actual places and names of real people for some locations and characters. For example, Z Pita, Port Jefferson, Belle Terre, Cross Island Ferry. Kevin Cronin, Joey Zee. Using real names and locations, especially for crime scenes, is poor practice, as it may reflect unfavorable upon the location or the person.


Stilted or unbelievable dialogue. Bud always says something like “let’s go, my partner” instead of simple “Let’s go partner.” There is a lack of contractions (e.g., I will instead of I’ll). Why would a very serious judge say, “Coffee goes right through me”?


POV. The uses an omniscient point of view, which is difficult to pull off successfully by even the best of authors, and Torbert is far from the best. Not only do we hop into the heads of multiple characters in a single scene, but we also have the voice of the narrator injected to explain or warn the reader of coming events, apparently in an attempt to build suspense.


Lack of scene breaks. The POV shifts are bad enough, but to shift from one location, conversation, and character to an entirely different set of location, conversation and characters in the very next paragraph is extremely disruptive to the reader. This disjointed string of scenes occurs many times.


Excessive number of named characters. I counted at least 60 named characters. Most of the names for unimportant characters should have been omitted to avoid cluttering the reader’s mind.


Lack of proper grammar, punctuation, and line breaks. It appears that no effort was made to proofread and edit what seems to be a rough draft of a novel. There are many instances where multiple people converse in the same paragraph.


Occasional type-o and misstatements. For example, the dog’s collar says “MINTY” although its name is Monty. Long island is not 1401 miles long as stated—it covers 1401 square miles.


Lack of believability. This is especially true on the occasions where one of the villains is able to knock out a person with a single blow to the head. A blow hard enough to knock out someone is very likely to kill them.


There is no backstory to provide the motivation of the ultimate criminal mastermind, or to explain his apparently ongoing contacts with criminals and why the contacts were never discovered.


I give this novel 2 out of 5 stars, for the reasons provided above. I could say more, but this is a review, not a tirade. Save your money and skip this book. Life is too short to waste on reading books with less than three stars. Let the author have a couple more years to learn the craft of writing.

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