The Second Shooter by Nick Mamatas

​   I’m the first person rating and reviewing this book, surprisingly so, for a recognizable author and a proper publisher. And I do really wish I was more complimentary to it, but since I can’t, the next goal is objectivity, Let’s see how I do with that.
     This is a book I was supposed to like. I was sure I would. It had all the right elements. It was exciting, mysterious adventure through a conspiracy laden plot, a paranoia infused narrative doing a thoroughly original and disturbing take on the most American of scenarios…the gun violence and public shootings.
      It’s a sort of thing the news has all but made us inured to, through repetition. There’s simply too much of it too often, and frequency tends to normalize the tragedy.
      But here the author has cleverly twisted it into something even more sinister…what if there was a mysterious second shooter? Some people swear by it. And so the book’s protagonist, an investigative journalist working for a small press that specializes in conspiracy theories and such, sets off to find out the truth and ends up on an increasingly dangerous journey to something grander and more evil that he might have ever imagined. And he’s an imaginative guy.
     This novel has a kitchen sink of goodies, including interesting characters from an African immigrant family to a radio jockey who screams for attention along the same lines as Alex Jones and a variety of conspiracies and conspiracy buffs. It has action, suspense, mystery. It even ambitiously ramps up into the metaphysical towards the end. It’s pretty well written and very clever in its references and yet…
     And yet it didn’t quite work for me. Some basic reader/book incompatibility. It’s always difficult to narrow it down to the whys with the objectively quality book. I can try, I suppose. There was something about the general tone of it that didn’t quite engage me. At first it reminded me of the testosterone slathered slabs of Clancy or Flynn or something, but that wasn’t quite it, either. It just…it was busy in an overwhelming way. It convoluted itself in unnatural ways, but in the end its greatest drag was that it went too far. I wouldn’t say it got too clever for itself, mainly because I loathe the idea of something being too clever and the way it negates cleverness, but toward the end the direction the novel took was too over the top. It was like a result of pouring gallons of gasoline on a paranoid conspiracy theory fire and watching it go and do an obliterating power whoosh. Too much too fast too far.
     Or maybe this is more like it..imagine talking to a conspiracy fanatic. At first they are likely to follow some thread of logic, however convoluted, but as you continue listening, they’ll go farther and farther and sound crazier and crazier, until whatever logic they followed is abandoned for all but the devotees.
     So those are my notes and thoughts on the book. The bottom line is it’s interesting, it spirals down some fascinating avenues, it’s original. It has a lot to recommend itself. It didn’t quite work for me, but it wasn’t a waste of time by any means. I’d be interested to read other reviews of this book as they materialize. Thanks Netgalley.