Content area
Full text
CLINTON Smith in Deep Six (HarperCollins, 383pp, $29.95) does the cliches of the international action thriller ("in the tradition of Clive Cussler and Matthew Reilly" fanfares the cover line) as well as anyone hoping to make a fortune by being plucked off airport bookshop racks. His is a superpowers defence strategies conspiracy plot involving a controlled release psychotoxin with stand-alone programming incorporating semi-chemical nanobots controlling mutation. At least, I think it is.
Large type, short sentences, comic-strip dialogue and instantly recognisable generic characters. Plus cascading action, cliffhangers every few paragraphs (maximo actiono, in minimo pages), and such an inexhaustible use of military acronyms that a glossary is provided.
Smith gets the whiplash telegraphic style right, the carnage done to the English language mirroring the damage done to humanity by the heavy calibre rounds of a chopper's pintle-mounted door gun. Still, it's hard to care about characters who never even get to inhabit a complete sentence (though agent Colin Blake, his eidetic secret- weapon memory an archive filled with detritus, is sometimes appealing).
Smith...