The Rasner Effect
by Mark Rosendorf
Published by L & L Dreamspell
Trade Paperback: 343 pp.
IBSN 978-1-60318-084-9
$18.95
Reviewed by Von Pittman
All spy/thriller novels that employ mercenary warriors feature ambiguity and betrayal, along with frequent reverses of fortune. The Rasner Effect amply exhibits these characteristics. The Duke Organization is a mercenary company in roughly the same sense that the James Brothers belonged to a company of Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. More accurately, the Duke Organization is a gang of thugs and assassins, some of whom are psychotic. Colonel Duke, a former Army officer, recruited disturbed and criminally inclined children to train for murderous rampages. As he raised them, he taught them to kill without remorse or even second thoughts. However, his successful efforts to eliminate any sense of conscience among his charges took a toll. He died at the hands of his daughter’s boyfriend, who then led the gang to new heights of slaughter and mayhem until he in turn was gunned down during an operation.
As the novel’s action begins, the Duke Organization is inoperative. Jen, the Colonel’s daughter, and a few remaining operatives are largely dormant and ineffective. However, they learn that their former leader—Jen’s lover—had survived the failed operation. The Army, in the person of the odious Colonel Straker, had implanted a computer chip in his head to induce amnesia, and to keep him under control. Under the name of Rick Rasner, the government creates a cover for him as a therapist. It places him in a psychiatric facility for troubled children, many of whom are prone to violence. Under the control of a doctor in the government’s hire, he becomes the most sympathetic of all the institution’s employees toward the children incarcerated there.
The dregs of the Duke Organization decide to bust Rasner out of his cover, neutralize the chip in his head—and thus the government’s control—and restore him to his calling as the leader of a band of mercenary killers, at girlfriend Jen Duke’s side. In the process, Rasner brings along the most violence-prone adolescent in the psychiatric facility. The remainder of the plot has to do with settling scores and combating the government’s mercenaries, the chief one of which had to be brought out from his cover identity in the witness protection program. Reversals of fortune, bouts of moral ambivalence, and long hand-to-hand fighting scenes comprise the remainder of the narrative.
Fictional treatments of mercenary fighters are almost inevitably unrealistic. The Rasner Effect pushes the disconnect from reality even further. While it is unrealistic to expect a heroic figure in such a book, almost all of the characters—and all the combatants—are both brutal and banal. It is difficult to care which side—and which individuals—will win out.
While this novel is based on action, remarkably little actually happens. Too frequently, the antagonists step back and think about their motivation, their next punch, or the emotion they see in their opponents’ eyes. Such reflections have the unfortunate effect of interrupting the narrative flow. The Rasner Effect could have profited greatly from more intensive editing. While the requisite murky morality and treachery are present, a story that depends on action and violence requires a faster pace.
Copyright @ 2009 Von Pittman
DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION
I have a material connection because I received a review copy that I can keep for consideration in preparing to write this content. I was not expected to return this item after my review.