A review by thecatsmother
Voodoo Eyes by Nick Stone

dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Voodoo Eyes has possibly the worst and most misleading blurb of any book I’ve read. It’s the third in a non-linear trilogy about Miami PI Max Mingus, but I had no problem reading it as a standalone. I found it at a book swap shelf in a camp site, and picked it rather at random from my unread treebook shelf because I liked the cover and the summary sounded interesting. This is not, however, a spooky paranormal story about a Haitian voodoo priest. Rather, it’s about an unpleasant ageing detective on a quest to find a murder suspect exiled to Cuba after his best friend is murdered. This would’ve been fine, but the blurb essentially gives away the plot’s main twist, and if you’re promising magic, you really should include some.

Max Mingus is a worn-out widowed PI reduced to taking sleazy adultery cases, and his only friend is his former police colleague Joe. When his former mentor is murdered, Max learns that the chief suspect is a former black radical found guilty of killing a cop, who escaped to Cuba decades earlier, is the chief suspect. Then Joe is shot dead in front of him, and Max is blackmailed by into travelling to an island still dominated by Castro to find her, but all is not as it seems, and he soon finds himself fighting for his life.

From what I can tell, the previous books are about a younger Max going up against Solomon Boukman, the baddie referred to in the blurb, in Haiti, so you do know that he will appear sooner or later, but it turns out to be very much later, and I think that’s the main problem - we only see the most interesting character of the book in the final chapters.  Max’s backstory is a history of policing during a time when anything went in the department - he wasn’t exactly dirty but he engaged in the widespread brutality and framing of innocents that went on, and isn’t really regretful enough about it to make an appealing hero. He describes (via a close third person past narrative POV) every female character in terms of her sexual attractiveness, which is something  I have a particular loathing for in male protagonists. 

The other negative for me was excessive scene and location descriptions that detract from the action in what is supposed to be a thriller but sometimes reads like a travel memoir. I did find the sociopolitical aspects of life in Cuba interesting, because it’s a country I know very little about, but there was way too much about what every building looked like or what everyone was wearing. This was set in 2008 against the backdrop of Obama’s election victory, which both added to the story in terms of the racial issues highlighted, but also dated it. 

Overall it’s a good story with an original setting so if the issues I’ve raised don’t tend to bother you, and you like noirish American fiction, then give it a go. There do not appear to be any other books in the series and I won’t be seeking out the previous ones.
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