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Jesse Kellerman kicked off his career as a novelist with SUNSTROKE, a thriller with a literary feeling, set in Mexico. In his second novel, he chooses New York as a backdrop to his powerful tale of a Good Samaritan who ends up with rather more than he had bargained for. Jonah Stem is an overworked medical student. Late one night, walking home through the streets of Manhattan, he sees an injured woman on her knees in an alley, bleeding and screaming for help. Jonah leaps into the fray, never imagining the drastic consequences that his intervention will have, leading to his entire life being turned upside down. Just like SUNSTROKE, TROUBLE has a literary feel to it. Eve Gones, one of the main protagonists, has a unique manner and speech that is filled with literary allusions and highly complicated vocabulary. There are a few words used that English students would love to work into their essays! Gones makes an interesting contrast to Jonah Stem, who is, essentially, a medical student desperately trying to keep his head above water in a profession becoming increasingly difficult with each passing day. Stem, however, is no one-dimensional character. He becomes very real, with his various tribulations on the domestic and work fronts, and Kellerman does an excellent job of drawing the reader into the nightmare unfolding around him. One of the main problems with the novel is that although it is enjoyable, once we work out where Kellerman is going, we can predict almost step for step what is going to happen. The same plot has been used and re-used by various authors and filmmakers over the years. Yes, we enjoy reading it and the quality of Kellerman’s writing does lift the novel up above some of its counterparts, but at the end of the day, the reader will have worked out the ending with at least 100 pages to go. Overall, TROUBLE is another well-written thriller that demonstrates Jesse Kellerman’s talents. However, I thought he could have gone further and endeavoured to stand out from the crowd.
Reviewed by Luke Croll, April 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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