Dirt: An American Campaign: 12/22/08

In the middle his bid for the presidency, the governor of Maine might have his campaign undone when his son digs robs the grave of his recently departed wife. 1601455720?p_isbn">Dirt: An American Campaign by Mark LaFlamme tries to track all fallout from Calvin Cotton's desperate act.

So far the reviews for Dirt have been positive but I'm going to have to be the dissenting voice. The first six pages, where Calvin enters the tomb and grabs his wife's corpse are riveting. The next fifty or so pages where word leaks out and the experts try to sort out what happened and what will happen is pretty good. The discussion of what will happen to the body is graphic, disgusting and interesting.

By the halfway point there are so many different parties all wanting a piece of the "dirt ", the men tracking Calvin, the reporters from NEWZ looking for a scoop, the governor and his campaign trying to hush everything up, that Calvin's story gets lost in the scrimmage. Calvin is the only character who interested me and I never really got a chance to get inside his head.

By the time the book wraps everything up the explanation for Calvin's actions are tied to a ridiculous and unbelievable cliche worthy of a soap opera. I'm not going to tell you what that twist is. You might actually be in the mood for a dumb twist. The book had far more potential and just failed to live up to it.

Comments (2)

Comment #1: Tuesday, December, 23, 2008 at 01:56:51

Alan

I also gave this one a negative review.

Comment #2: Saturday January 3, 2008 at 17:39:15

Pussreboots

Thanks for sharing your review. I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't love it.