audiobooks

Don't plan on getting anything else done until you've finished this book! I picked it up on Saturday afternoon and read the last page on Sunday night! Here it is 2 days later and I'm still thinking about it...loved the ending...did she or didn't she? I truly enjoyed McKay's "screenwriting" style because it's short and to the point without a lot of descriptive prose. This book is for the intelligent reader who loves crisp dialogue, a believable plot and villan and lots of surprises along the way. I loved the cat - he added great visuals to the Maude scenes. This book is sexy and horrifying at the same time. Bravo, Garner!

I don't spend much time with thrillers, but reading Gardner McKay's Toyer was time well spent. Some readers will object to his obvious blending of conventional narrative and playwriting techniques, but it worked for me. In fact, more novelists should study dramatic writing with an eye to getting rid of tedious description which serves no end. His playwriting backround is particularly noticeable in the handling of dialogue. Note, for example, the very sparing use of 'he said', 'she said'. It's not necessary.

The story is consuming. Once I picked it up I was hooked. Nothing else was read until I finished. As for believability... believable enough. That's what good fiction writing is after all -- the suspension of disbelief.

It's rare to find a thriller that isn't badly written, despite a strong story, or pretentious and badly written. Toyer is that rare find.

Written from several points of view, Toyer is a serial murder mystery unlike most others, especially in the fact that the murderer doesn't kill his victims. Rather this person, which a newspaper reporter dubs 'Toyer" (because he toys with his victims and the police) permanently disables his victims by cutting off their spinal cord from their brain, effectively turning them into living vegetables.

Maude Garance is the doctor who treats Toyer's victims. The knowledge of what Toyer has done to his victim's sits heavily upon the shoulders of Dr. Garance, who calls the victims 'little flowers' and thinks of the photos taken by the victim's families as 'still life portraits'. She finds herself enraged at the havoc that Toyer causes for the victims and their families, who have lost a member, who they can't even grieve for because they are still alive.

This, of course, sets up a conflict between Dr. Garance and Toyer, and it is this conflict which becomes the central story to this novel. There are other subplots and minor stories, which I will allow the reader the fun of discovering.

There are some plot holes in this novel, and a few character motiviations which I find frankly unbelievable under most any circumstance. That being said, McKay writes his characters so well, with such depth and nuance, that the reader feels willing to suspend disbelief and trust the author to bring it all off in the end. Here the author brings us imperfect, and not even entirely likable, sympathetic characters, as well as a bad guy that you can't quite hate altogether. These character formulations, along with some plain old fashioned good prose writing, bring Toyer together as an imperfect, but still very good novel.

Readers who enjoy James Patterson, and are looking for something slightly similiar with better prose, will likely enjoy this novel, as will readers who enjoy novels that have a dark feel almost all the way through.