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A mini-review of "From Cape Town With Love"


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I finally finished my book club’s selection for this quarter. It is entitled “From Cape Town With Love“, and is a collaboration between Tananarive Due, her husband Steven Barnes, and screen actor Blair Underwood,

“From Cape Town With Love” is the 3rd in the Tennyson Hardwick series, and is typical escapist fare. James Patterson and Jackie Collins have nothing on the aforementioned triumvirate of authors who have merged their talents to the take their readers on a roller coaster ride via the adventures of Tennyson Hardwick, a handsome, free-spirited, black, Hollywood bit player who doubles as a bodyguard to the rich famous, - a gig for which his martial arts skills supremely qualify him. But not just qualified to kick ass, Hardwick's resume is further enhanced by an earlier stint as a male escort, a vocation which enabled him to hone what has turned him into a "babe magnet" specializing in booty calls. With a protagonist like this how can a book miss - if you’re looking for violent action and hot sex.

In his latest escapade, fresh back from a failed love affair with a sweetheart in South Africa, and between movie bit parts, Hardwick is hired to help keep tabs on the celebrity guests of a birthday party for the adopted toddler of a famous movie siren whose taste in orphans leans toward the African brand. And, - you guessed it! In the midst of all the fun and games the child is kidnapped by what might be a South African crime syndicate.

What follows is over 300 pages of terse dialogue, swerving car chases, passionate bed hopping, hand-to-hand combat inter-dispersed with whizzing bullets and slashing knives. The plot is full of twists, the characters full of mystery, but all’s well that ends well as the intrigue spirals to a climax replete with a surprise ending and a happy resolution of the subplot. And thrown in just for good measure is the epiphany our courageous, compassionate, super stud experiences as Tennyson Hardwick realizes his true calling in life.

"From Cape Town With Love" is a well-written, well-crafted thriller but a fast read it is not because it is bogged down with detail which, although somewhat interesting and informative, still has to be plowed through. Nevertheless, the authors are to be commended for doing a good job of tackling this genre and giving equal time to a black action hero. Out of a possible four stars, I'd award this book 3. ***

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Did you miss the last sentence of my review, Troy? Check it out.

I read the first entry in this series, which was pretty good. It introduced Tennyson Harwick and was a murder mystery set in the fast lane of LA's hip-hop scene where mayhem and sex ran rampant. I think I like this latest book a little better.

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Did you miss the last sentence of my review, Troy? Check it out.

You see, Troy just gave the perfect example of how "fast" we read

nowadays. We don't really read...we SCAN things.

I hate when people read an essay or commentary by me and then ask

me a question that was talked about in the article! I just had 6

people do that in last 3 hours after reading my essay "Why I love America."

They don't really take the time read something anymore.

We're a busy, busy, busy SCAN-IT population now. Short attention spans.

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Well I can't argue with you on that point Kola. I simply missed Cynique's statement - sorry Cynique.

Maybe I missed it because "four" was spelled out and three was written as an integer -- who knows but I clearly missed it. Yeah, yeah short attention spans. Doing multiple things at one time. I get it, I'm guilty -- shoot me!

In fact, the same happens with my own writing. I can write a newsletter re-read it multiple times and miss glaring errors -- that I only catch after the thing has been emailed.

People can only consume information in small bytes. We are taught to "webify" our content -- write in short easily digested sentences. Text dense sentences and polysyllabic words are a non-no

The world operates on emotion fueled sound bites.

Kola get used to it. It will only get worse.

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