Erika Holzer

I liked this--but it's telling that looking over my shelves to decide what needs to go to liberate shelf space, this was one of the first books I drew down. Holzer is a competent writer--and that's not to be disparaging. It's easy to understand what caught the eye of film-makers in this story of a mother looking for revenge for her murdered daughter. The adaption with Sally Field and Kiefer Sutherland is a good, memorable film, as this is a good memorable book. Not that many books, that decades after reading it, I can call the basic plot to mind. But given that, there's just not enough in terms of either style or character or impact that makes me want to read it again and again--or watch the film again and again. So, bottom line, if this book comes your way, read it. I think you'll be entertained. But a keeper? No.… (mer)

When I first read this book it was titled Double Crossing, while it's been revised and published recently as Freedom Bridge: A Cold War Thriller. Such a different time. When this book was first published there was still a Soviet Union, still an East Germany, and I was very young and filled with moral outrage that so many around me were so... blase about the evils of what were happening behind the Iron Curtain, this idea that the differences between us were trivial. I loved reading Thomas Clancy then, and loved reading this book then, because for once it didn't wrap things in this drab blanket of moral greyness. It still rather annoys me when I read authors such as John Le Carre or Graham Greene who seem to send the message there's wasn't much to choose between the Soviets and the Americans. At the same time, both are superb writers--while Erika Holzer just strikes me as competent.

Which mind you, is not to be disparaged. I liked this book. I liked the characters, the twists, and at times I found it suspenseful. I wouldn't mind taking a book of this quality along on a long plane trip--if I hadn't read it before. It's entertaining. That's why it doesn't get any less than three stars. But it's just not a book I can read again and again, it doesn't have for me that staying power decades after having first read it. Her characters and prose just don't quite come up to the level I can find new things, admire the writing, or read as great comfort food reading.… (mer)