All Through the Night by T Davis Bunn

Wayne Grusza is a man running from a troubled past who decides to settle down in a senior community in order to be an investigative accountant. The seniors there then sweet-talk him into breaching the high security estate of a con artist in order to recover stolen goods. Wayne has no problem with the job, except for the fact that a female lawyer, also with a troubled past, is intrigued with Wayne and follows his every move. He feels himself developing an attraction to her, which is something he cannot afford. On top of this, an angel has appeared to another one of Wayne's clients, warning them of something to come. It will take more than Wayne's analytical brain to figure that one out.

The summary above can describe any and every T Davis Bunn book on the market. Anyone can invent this type of plot; it takes no skill. However, writing this type of plot with originality does take an amount of skill. And believe it or not, T has written a semi-original book. I never knew it to be possible, but he has, and that alone is something to celebrate.

This is a shocker-several of the characters have personalities! Though Wayne lacks a personality, he is an imperfect character! His troubled past is his fault! It's hard to believe that this type of simple originality is coming from an author who has written such cheap suspense in the past.

Surprisingly, All Through the Night is not suspense at all. T does not even force the book to be suspense. It is a normal plot about everyday life and people. However, this book does not come without its flaws. The characters move from one task to another like a fantasy quest, fixing them as they go along. Breaching the high security estate does not fill up the entire book; only about the first fifty pages. From there, Wayne flits around from task to task. While this is realistic, it is not realistic to have every problem fixed in the end. This is the main flaw of the book.

But there are other quirks like the unexplained disappearance of a potentially interesting character and the working out of the inevitable romantic subplot. But with this book, T Davis Bunn has shown that there is hope for even the most unlikely of authors.

So congratulations, Mr. Bunn, on your first Elite book.

4 stars

The Great Divide by T Davis Bunn

Marcus Glenwood is a lawyer who recently suffered a family tragedy. As a result, he reigned from he prestigious law firm he worked for and went to live in Rocky Mount, North Carolina to live in a house he inherited from his grandfather. There he opens up his own law firm from his house.

Austin and Alma Hall come to him, asking him to represent them as they sue New Horizons, a successful sports gear company, for allegedly kidnapping their daughter in China. Their daughter had been investigating their labor practices as a civil rights activist. As a result, the head of the Chinese factory kidnapped her and began to make her work for them. The Halls know this because of a ransom video the factory head sent them. Apparently they want $100,000 for her release.

Marcus agrees to take on their impossible case and together they fight against a Fortune 500 company who has never lost a case.

I can't tell how sick I am of these types of plots. I can't even fit all the problems with this book in one review. I can't even tell you how surprised I am that people actually like this nonsense. But I will try.

First of all, Marcus Glenwood is portrayed as a victim throughout the entire book. Apparently his past isn't his fault at all. He's a victim of circumstance. Nobody likes him. Everybody hates him. No one is fair to him. Poor, poor, rich Marcus Glenwood. He is also a T Davis Bunn specialty-a non-character. He's not even a perfect character. Judging by his dialogue, I can't even feel like he's a real person. He acts like a robot the entire book. He doesn't have any thoughts or any kind of unique statements.

Second of all, none of the other characters are any good either. They are all either perfect, evil, or robotic. The reader doesn't even feel like the people are real.

Third of all, Rocky Mount is a small town full of, you guessed it, hicks. I am so tired of authors filling small towns with hicks! But these aren't your typical hicks. No, these are far worse. Their dialogue makes me wonder whether they even earned an education. Besides that, small towns full of hicks is a piece of Literary Trash.

Fourth of all, there are three really stupid villains. Two of them are the lawyers opposing Marcus and the other is the owner of the Chinese factory. The lawyers act like clowns in court. They definitely don't act professional. Impromptu outbursts in the middle of court, obnoxious behavior toward other characters, and typical dialogue litter these ridiculous villains. These are some of the worst I've ever read.

Fifth of all, the court case might as well be a kangaroo trial. Nothing about it is realistic. Since when does a Fortune 500 company nab an American college student and make her work in their factory? And why do they need a ransom of $100,000? Why did the parents sue the company over a kidnapping? Why couldn't they just go to the authorities? In the end, nothing else matters but the tiny thread of evidence Marcus finds directly before closing arguments. These types of cases are unrealistic and ridiculous.

The whole book is just a sham. I could go on and on about all the problems, but I don't have time. There are only two good things I can say about the book: there is no romantic subplot, which is a surprise for T, and there is one original thing at the end of the book. Otherwise, The Great Divide is a cesspool of Literary Trash.

1.5 stars

One False Move by T Davis Bunn

You should never give up on an author until you've read all their books. T may have a Elite book in there yet.
One False Move tells the story of Claire, a Denver newspaper reporter chasing down a potentially juicy story: a computer company has created a game that allows the player to play the game from the inside, so to speak. The player can live the game.
But with this new technology comes a price: addiction so deep that the players begin to be unable to seperate reality from fantasy.
But the company is also toying around with drugs and how they can effect the players. Things are not all above board.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like T's best plot idea yet. Claire is actually a semi-believable character. She has other things going on in her life too, such as two potential boyfriends. Neither of them is bad, it's just a matter of faith.
The main thing keeping this book off the Elite List is the dumb end. As usual, T had to throw in a dumb villain with a false suspense scene in which Claire gets captured and is forced to play the game.
I saw that one coming.
If he would have just left well enough alone and let the game be the villain and simply show the consequences of that type of invention without pushing the issue too strongly, than this would have been an Elite book.
Instead, he fell just short.
3.5 stars

Winner Take All by T Davis Bunn

I can barely fit between my fingers how close Davis Bunn came to an original ending of Winner Take All. It was so close.
This story continues The Great Divide, and while I don't usually like sequels to legal books, this one wasn't half bad. However, regardless of what everyone thinks, this is not a thriller or any kind of suspense novel.
The plot is about a man's ex-wife who takes their daughter away from him one night for no apparent reason. The ex-wife is a prominent figure, an opera singer whom everyone likes. Marcus Glenwood, the ever faithful defense lawyer, takes up his case with vigor.
Marcus, as usual, is having struggles of his own. He is trying to get Kristen, his girlfriend, to accept his marriage proposal. Filtered into the plot is snippets from Kristen's past that explain her reasons of refusal.
While some of the characters are better than his other books, the rest of them are either overdone or underdone. For instance, the defendant is extremely bland and does and says hardly anything. On the other hand, the ex-wife is played up to be too much of an evil person when it doesn't really seem like she is.
On the surface, this looks like a same old, same old custody battle that ends predictable. That's exactly what it is. Like I said, and like I have said in most of my reviews for Davis' books, this one could have had a really good ending. One that made a lot of sense and would have been the best custody plot ever written. He even set it all up. But no, he went back to the typical.
This book is basically overrated, yet I don't regret reading it.
2 stars

The Lazarus Trap by T Davis Bunn

People say The Lazarus Trap is one of the best suspense books on the market. I've read rave reviews about it, saying how complex the characters are and how it left them spellbound to the last page. That sickens me. To be honest, I wasn't really excited about reading the book after reading all of Bunn's other "masterpieces".
The Lazarus Trap is about a man who wakes up in prison with no remembrance of who he is or how he got there. In his wallet he finds the driver's licence of a man that, after further research, does not even exist. There's no explanation of how the licence got there in the first place. He almost immediately remembers who he is and begins to run away from his former life by changing his name.
But Bunn couldn't resist the need for "suspense". He added a completely unnecessary part about the lead's former corporate enemy chasing him all around the world. The reason: he just wants him dead. And of course, our plastic heroic lead, who can do no wrong, runs, and along the way, hooks up with a shady group of computer hackers just trying to make a living. In the end, the hero wins and gets in no trouble for associating with them.
As with most of Bunn's books, the plot is very fixable. There should have been no chase, only the lead's attempt the escape his past. He should have learned something from hanging around the wrong people at the end. Basically, I would never recommend this book to anyone, especially if they were new to Christian suspense. I would recommend James Scott Bell instead.
2 stars

The Centurion's Wife by T Davis Bunn and Janette Oke

Since I usually start off T Davis Bunn books with the bad stuff, I'll start with the good stuff this time. The Centurion's Wife is fixable. That's about it. It's fixable. And it's only fixable if T Davis Bunn ACTUALLY LEARNS HOW TO DEVELOP CHARACTERS! In fact most Biblical and historical fiction have bad characters, so I guess I'll let that one go this time.
The plot is about a Jewess servant to Procula, the wife of Pontious Pilate. She is betrothed to a centurion who is on a mission to find out if the strange rabbi who was crucified is still alive or not. The Jewess is also looking for a meaning to life.
This sounds interesting in itself, except that this story has been overused. She doesn't love the centurion at first, but they end up loving each other uncontrollably after they both become Christians at the same time!
The story did not hold my attention and I couldn't wait to get it over with. I would have to say that half of T Davis Bunn's problem is the public. No matter what he does, they like it. They make it too easy for him to just spout off a stupid plot. Basically, The Centurion's Wife is no different from any of his other books and will not be very high on the Books of 2009 list.
2 stars

Riders of the Pale Horse

Bunn's biggest problem as a writer is false advertisement. This is reflected once again in Riders of the Pale Horse. While he did the best research job ever in this book, the plot and characters are still lacking in depth.
The plot is supposed to be about an American doctor, the perfect male lead, giving free help to hospitals as he crosses the Algerian desert. On the other side of the desert is a woman whom he is destined to instantly fall in love with even though they have never met. This is the female lead's only point in the story, except that she meets many people that give her information dumps about the area.
The two of them meet in the middle of the plot, and from there it turns from a mindless international plot into a love story. The two instantly fall in love and can't stop looking and thinking about each other and thinking thoughts like, I don't know how, but this man is destined to change my life forever. Besides Bunn's lack of real emotions, he can't seem to get away from the romance.
Now did any of that sound like an international suspense novel about terrorists smuggling weapons from Russia across the desert? That's what the cover description says it is. The only part about weapons in the information dump at the end called an epilogue.
Basically, Bunn hasn't gotten anywhere in his writing career, no matter how old his books are. He always stays with the same plot and never deviates. If by some miracle, he someday abandons this thoroughly worn-out storyline, it will be something rejoice about.
2 stars for good research

Kingdom Come by T Davis Bunn and Larry Burkett

Cult stories are usually predictable and unoriginal. But not all plots have to be that way.
Kingdom Come tells the story of a strange fenced in community called Kingdom Come. Legally, everything's above board and clean. They have all the government licences and regulations in a row. But a picky FBI chief is all uptight about the fence built around the city. So he sends one of his best undercover agents in to join the community and see what's up.
The only problem is, everyone in Kingdom Come knows the agent is coming and even greet him cordially. The agent is taken aback at this as he is warmly greeted by the citizens, even though they know he's FBI. He begins attending church services there and finds himself begin to actually like the place.
But trouble comes in at another angle when a senior pastor who knows the pastor at Kingdom Come begins sniffing around and trying to get his hands in their business.
Overall, the plot is a little slow for those who are looking for a fast paced story. But the true originality behind this plot is shown in the fact that not all cults have to sacrifice people on altars or enforce heavy statutes.
But the problem comes in at the Bunn's failed attempt at a suspenseful scene at the end. It's nonsensical. Without this scene, the book might have made the Elite List.
But there are other things that kept it off the Elite List, like shallow characters and unnecessary scenes.
But all in all, this is actually a book by T Davis Bunn that I would recommend.
2.5 stars

Impostor by T Davis Bunn

There are always exceptions.
Impostor is the exception to Bunn's usual bad writing style. Though it can still be improved, it's his best book to date.
It's about a Baltimore cop who is investigating a bomb explosion-the very one that killed his mother. Meanwhile, his father is campaigning for his seat in the US senate.
There are several problems with it, though. The first being the inevitable unnecessary romance. The second being the lack of good characters (there's something new). The main character is portrayed as a man who can put on any exterior to hide his true feelings. The result is a non-character. The lead is an entity, something that everyone else talks about, but has no thoughts or feelings of its own. I heard other characters talk about his magical ability, but I never actually saw it myself.
The worst thing about is that if you remove the lead from this story, you don't lose anything. That's pretty bad. However, this book does contain Bunn's one and only good character, the female lead.
The third problem is the length. It's much too long. The middle does not hold the reader's attention well at all. There aren't really any plot twists. It's just a monotone plot.
But one of Bunn's most original ends to date is contained in this book. Not even I expected this one. Considering all these facts, however, T Davis Bunn has yet to make the Elite list.
3 stars

Heartland by T Davis Bunn

The only book that I can think of that is similar to Heartland is Take One by Karen Kingsbury. However, Take One is much better than Heartland.
Heartland has a very disjointed storyline. The description on the back was extremely misleading and the plot was all over the place It never stuck with one thing, it jumped all around. The back says it's supposed to be about an actor caught in a bus crash on his way to a movie set. He thinks he is dead but wakes up on the movie set with short term memory loss. But he realizes that his life may have been the figment of someone else's imagination.
Sounds cool, huh?
That's exactly what I thought. It was my first pick of the pile of library books. But disappointment set in before I was even halfway through with it. It's really about an actor with short term memory loss working with his friend, the director, on a movie with a low budget.
The characters were plastic, as usual. Once again, I don't know who they are.
The middle of the book meanders along and around certain ideas. I can't really point out to you any bright spots because it was all so robotic. "He did this and she did that and he did that and she did this."
But then the book comes up to an interesting point before the end. From this point, the book could have been very creative or very cheesy. It was cheesy. I thought of a much better ending that could have made the whole thing, including the back cover, make sense.
But it didn't. This book is basically a waste of your time.
1.5 stars

Full Circle by T Bavis Bunn

If you can think of the most typical, empty, plastic romance plot ever written, than that is Full Circle. At least Bunn didn't try to call this book suspense, because it's the farthest thing from it.
The plot is about a young, struggling businessman who crosses paths with a young woman with a dream to do missionary work in Africa. I don't really understand why Bunn thinks he always needs to write a romance.
Besides being bad characters (Bunn's specialty), the two are completely obsessed with each other from first look. There's not really a plot; the characters are just swept along in the mediocre undertow called T Davis Bunn. The dialogue is shallow, and the ending very vague and spacey. The whole book is about people trying to get money, and fighting each other over it. There's barely any mention of God or what He can do beyond money. This alone makes it one of the worst books ever written.
Most of T's other books have potential. This one does not, because of its worn out plot idea.
The best thing I can do is hope for him to somehow hit the right note one of these days.
1 star

Elixir by T Davis Bunn

Elixir has a very original plot structure. The plot is about an undercover surfer working to find the heir to a pharmaceutical empire. As a twist, the heir was his former girlfriend. He is sent on this mission by the heir's sister, a strange character indeed.
The problem is the lead has no feeling and no character to him. He does everything perfectly and has no extra thoughts. Bunn does too much of telling the story and not enough character development. There were multiple characters that should have been deeper than they were. I don't know who any of Bunn's characters are. I don't know how they would react in a certain situation because they're all plastic. There is one particular good character that Bunn does nothing to expand upon.
Another problem is the false suspense. The back cover describes it as suspense. This is the most overused genre because a lot of authors think they can write suspense when they really cannot. This book is really a modern-day quest, which is still one of the most overused plot structures.
Bearing all these problems with the book, the end wasn't half bad. I mean the real end, not the two unnecessary epilogues that ruin the book. If it weren't for the epilogues, the end would redeem the book. But the epilogues ruin it. It's like Bunn couldn't leave well enough alone.
I know when you first started reading this, you thought I was a geeky reviewer who couldn't see a good story from a bad one, but this book wasn't really good enough to be the Crossings book club selection of the month. And Davis Bunn isn't as good as he thinks he is.
2.5 stars for potential