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In Jim Cort's debut novella, Jason Ackerdyne is considered to be the fifth richest man alive according to Fortune magazine. Willie Dowd, an Irish terrorist, who stole something valuable from the Ackerdyne Group, is threatening him. If his demands are not met within a specified period of time, he plans to publicly humiliate Mr. Ackerdyne. The multimillionaire cannot let trivialities bother him and lets his employees take care of it. Enter Milo Costigan. Through the use of flashbacks, Cort shows the life of Danny Carmody before he became Milo Costigan. He was Willie Dowd's protégée in the Provisional Irish Republican Army. After everything he witnessed, Danny gets out of the life and comes to America as Milo Costigan. He is a drifter who is living one day at a time waiting for an opportunity to one day kill Willie Dowd. Ackerdyne is fully aware of this and decides to take advantage of it. Julia Malcom is Ackerdyne's Special Assistant for Security. She goes to Milo and feeds him a cock-and-bull story in order to lure him in and stop Dowd. He accepts after careful consideration and gets to work. He will learn that he has been lied to and that there is a bigger picture involved in the case. It will test his loyalties and force him to make some hard decisions. The Lonely Impulse is filled with a lot of action and suspense; however, none of those elements can save what is a poorly written story. Jim Cort performed a lot of research on weapons, power plants, museum security and Northern New Jersey geography in order to write the novella. No complaints here. It is the little things that spoil the story and it continues to add up. At the beginning of the tale, Willie Dowd wounds a gun dealer who tries to double cross him. Being a man of honor, he pays the man and walks away with the merchandise. Cletis Watkins wants revenge to what was done to him, but has little clue into how to achieve this. Jason Ackerdyne is not happy with the way Milo is doing is job and decides to change the rules. He lures Cletis with a five hundred dollar bill to listen to his proposition. Should he accept the job, he will get five thousand dollars for his trouble. Cletis, not believing his luck accepts. So, what is the problem here? The story's context places the book at some point after 1991. Anyone who is a regular watcher of Jeopardy! should know by now that the highest bill denomination printed by the U. S. Mint is the one hundred dollar bill. The five hundred dollar bill has been discontinued since the mid-1970s. The second major problem involves the Julia Malcom character. The author spends time with her, introducing her to the readers, explaining a bit of her past and how she began working for Jason Ackerdyne. -(pg. 8 "This was a far cry from her situation only eighteen months ago. She left the CIA under a cloud, her prospects nil.") When things start going from bad to worse, Ackerdyne cuts his losses and washes his hands of her and lets Arthur Knapp, his personal assistant to deliver the news. When Julia gets the announcement, she thinks: -(pg. "After all these years, she had finally broken Arthur Knapp.") What calendar was the author using? Since when does eighteen months equal a few years? This was pure carelessness by the author and not an isolated incident. There is more that can be said, but this is it for now. Perhaps, next time, the author will be more meticulous with his writing.
Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, February 2003
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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