Watchlist: A Serial Thriller [Hardcover]

The two "serial thrillers" offered in "Watchlist" are the product of the collaborative effort of 22 of the finest thriller writers in the world. Among the authors participating in the project are: Linda Barnes, Lee Child, Lisa Scottoline, Erica Spindler, David Hewson and Jeffrey Deaver (who created the basic characters and wrote the first and last chapters of the two novels). "The Chopin Manuscript" was first offered as an audio book and was named 2008 Audio Book of the year by the Audio Publisher's Association. Its follow-up, "The Copper Bracelet," throws several of the same characters into a new adventure some two years after the conclusion of the first book.

And as bad as "The Chopin Manuscript" is, "The Copper Bracelet" is equally as good.

The two books have much in common but one gets the sense that the authors did not really hit their stride with the concept until the second book. "The Chopin Manuscript" reads less like a cohesive novel than it does a competition among its 15 writers to ensure that their individual chapters contain more outlandish action than the chapter immediately preceding theirs. So little time is spent on character development that the rapid-fire adventure seems to be happening to cartoon characters rather than to real people - and the constant losing-and-regaining of the upper hand plus last second rescues of main characters will test the patience of readers.

"The Copper Bracelet," authored by 9 of the first book's 15 writers, plus 7 new ones, spends more time developing characters and explaining their motivations. As a result, although much of the action in this second book is every bit as wild as that in the first, readers will find it easier to suspend their disbelief because of the emotional attachment they will feel toward this story's characters, hero and villain, alike.

Harold Middleton, a former military intelligence officer who has more recently functioned as a war-crimes investigator, is the main character in both books. Other recurring characters include Middleton's daughter Charlotte, a talented young Polish violinist called Felicia Kaminski, and several members of what Middleton calls The Volunteers, a small group of trusted colleagues who help him in his investigations and who are willing to share the violence directed their way by those wanting to stop their snooping. The collection's finer villains, in particular, Devras Sikari, his son Archer, and their female accomplice, Jana, are reserved for the second book.

"Watchlist" transports its readers from Virginia to Washington D.C., Poland, Italy, Pakistan, Kashmir, London and Paris, among other stops, with much violence and nonstop action sure to be had at each location. Despite the unevenness of the two stories, this one will appeal to thriller fans and readers intrigued about the process by which the two books were written. The second book is such a huge improvement over the first, in fact, that I find myself hoping that the authors will collaborate on a third.

Authors of The Chopin Manuscript: Jeffrey Deaver, David Hewson, James Grady, S.J. Rozan, Erica Spindler, John Ramsey Miller, David Corbett, John Gilstrap, Joseph Finder, Jim Fusilli, Peter Spiegelman, Ralph Pezzullo, Lisa Scottoline, P.J. Parrish, Lee Child

Authors of The Copper Bracelet: Jeffrey Deaver, Gayle Lynds, David Hewson, Jim Fusilli, John Gilstrap, Joseph Finder, Lisa Scottoline, David Corbett, Linda Barnes, Jenny Siler, David Liss, P.J. Parish, Brett Battles, Lee Child, Jon Land, James Phelan

Back in your primary school days you probably partook in the exercise of everyone in the class writing a paragraph then passing the paper to the person sitting next to them who wrote the next paragraph, passed it to the next person and so on until everyone in the class had contributed to each of the 30 or so stories. Well that is exactly what the publishers of Watchlist did for the two stories contained within, with thriller writers who various levels of success in the real world. Well originally the first story The Chopin Manuscript was an audio book exercise but more or less they did the same thing. Not an original concept by any means (unless maybe for a spoken book project) but for a written novel, it has been done plenty of times before. The first time I came across this concept in a published book was for a book called Naked Came the Manatee. Since then I've come across various tackling a project like this maybe ten times, although none of the finished stories have been masterpieces or even that memorable as I can't even remember those books' names. The same forgetableness occurs with Watchlist's two stories, The Chopin Manuscript and The Copper Bracelet. In fact this is probably the worst effort of this sort of project that I've read.

Jeffery Deaver starts of both stories well, but most of the other authors seemed to either not really get the spirit of the project, or just plain didn't have the ability to continue the story well. With the first couple of authors it seems everyone must have fought to be the writer who started the novel, as they are completely different characters with the editor maybe giving those stories back after they were unsuccessful at being the opening author and saying well here's the order your in, live with it, read the previous and link yours somehow. I mean we start of with a piano tuner chatting to a man who unbeknownst to him has just murdered the other occupants of the building. Then we go to a guy (who becomes the main character) waiting for a plane and being detained by the Polish police with a weak link of he had lunch with the guy. Then we jump to Italy where a struggling Polish immigrant is busking and being harassed by a homeless guy who it is pretty obvious isn't going to just be a homeless guy with the weak link, the guy was her uncle. Where's the spirit of the project in just creating a new characters and settings, instead of having to further develop the characters from the previous chapters, pick up the scene from where the previous author left off, using what's already there, maybe put in a twist and let the next author continue on from the challenges in the plot written in the chapter before? The biggest problem of all for both stories, is that they are pretty boring and with most authors' work a struggle to get through. The only thing that keeps you going is you know the contributions by the author you are reading will be over very soon and you're hoping a better author will save the story or at least make it more interesting. Never really happens though!

Jeffery Deaver helms a collaborative effort by 21 thriller writers--including Lee Child, Lisa Scottoline and Joseph Finder--that includes two novellas--The Chopin Manuscript, in which Harold Middleton discovers that a score by Chopin holds a deadly secret, and its sequel The Copper Bracelet, which finds Harold drawn into a plot that could lead to a nuclear war. Bt.
This was an interesting collaboration of authors, all very qualified and talented thriller writers. As a whole these were two very entertaining novels, though I preferred The Copper Bracelet a wee bit more even though it was a bit more intricate. I like the idea behind this type of collaboration but to me it seems that it takes away some of the fluidity you get from a single author. With the talent that was presented though, it still came out a quality thriller sure to satisfy any readers of any of these authors.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 21 reviews  3.3 out of 5 stars