The genre of these books is said to be suspense thrillers. By the end of the first book I declared it of the dystopian genre and never changed my mind, because it did indeed get worse...
First, a definition: a very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering, especially an imaginary society in the future, after something terrible has happened; a description of such a society: The film is set in 2700 on an uninhabitable Earth, a dystopia covered in towers of garbage...
In these books, there is no other civilization other than 3 groups. Two of them are controlling mobs--one mob has been confined to Canada while the other one apparently owns America or Europe--maybe every place other than Canada. There is NO reference to anything out of the lives of those within the two mobs, except for one small group, which seems to be attempting to rid the world of a corruption. This small group is brought in over and over and over to fight the mob(s) members. Do you begin to understand why I considered it a dystopian world. With no reference of a world outside of these three groups, readers MUST assume that the world as we know it has been totally taken over by criminals. Frankly, just like we see that our government seems to be "mostly" taken over by criminals... working to destroy what exists and create a new world led by powerful moneyed people who seek only more power and money...
To complicate matters, each mob has people who are sent into the other mob to infiltrate, playing both sides, using false names... They appear to both be from the same country from which most of us automatically think of course when the word "mob" is used. So, moving into the 3 groups more deeply, we find that it is actually two families...
In this dystopian world, all trust is gone. Nobody trusts, except for a few who have become close... But even then, money can bring about a change of loyalty... Yes, loyalty becomes the primary controlling factor, even when there is no trust. Apparently anybody can pledge loyalty and get into one of the mobs (or both). Loyalty is clearly bought and family means nothing in this world. In fact...
The story begins by a couple who has received a computer drive. The husband is murdered, the wife has no idea what is on the drive. But everybody else seems to know and consider it a important acquisition. People quickly start to be killed as everybody begins to chase down what the information on the computer drive actually is...
That's essentially the storyline...And characters then proceed to form and reform loyalties, either through personal attachment, discovering that long-lost loves are not really dead, or paying big bucks to change sides. Criminality and death mean nothing to the men at the top of these groups...as long as control and money is retained, or increased for those who are already rich, but want more and more... And power is the source of all decisions--to murder or not to murder...
Three books full of merely changing characters, some getting killed, others replacing them, some changing loyalties for one reason or another, but no matter what, members of these two families are killed. There is no time for any reverence for the dead--for burial and mourning. Only time to ensure that whoever had changed loyalties had been discovered and...murdered... or disappeared...
Even in the third group, those in this group begin to wonder who can be trusted--for just cause... At one point there are about three individuals who feel they each are trustworthy--of each other only...
Ok, bottom line... Would I have had a different opinion of these three books if they were not so emblematic of what we see right now in America, where instability of everything, based on DEI, from education to financial institutions, to our government are being destroyed (or attempted) on a hourly/daily basis? Or a crushing, world-wide tariff madness that is affecting the working lives of thousands, if not millions? No, I don't think so. Honing in on a small set of people which happens to be family allows us to recognize that something is seriously wrong in this storyline. There is little introduction of how exactly all of this hate and violence has been allowed to fester and grow, except from the standpoint of money and power... While the characters are highlighted differently in each book, there is no world outside of the mob members and/or those who are attempting to "help..." even while violence has taken those individuals out of the picture for a while... While the writer works harder than normal to ensure readers know who people are, given the duplicate names and different sides for which they may be fighting at any given time, I had to question, is this really worth the time to read, given that it is three books of, really, the same thing over and over? Fighting, Violence, Death, Demand for Loyalty, the realization that loyalty is bought not deserved... And...
Even the few spots of love cannot override the devastation and overkill of death and destruction as the primary activity... This was a downer from the word Go... When suspense is claimed, but is nothing but who is this individual loyal to...today... and thriller equals killing only to be killing those you hate... I have to say that the level of dystopia in a destroyed world reigns... And escape is the only answer if you've lived through the ongoing murders that constantly are occurring... Much like I'm doing right now in America, I'll fight to escape this madness...
When you recognize that you are afraid, fearful for either your life or loss of any kind to you or your family-- Worry that you are no longer in a safe and secure environment where you can have some semblance of trust with your fellowman-- Then you must realize that something is very wrong. If mobs or cults have formed and have become so powerful in the world, that nothing beyond the resultant immediate fear is known, and, as a human you feel as if nothing can help, we, as humans, naturally turn to someone to hold on to. We cannot live in isolation, afraid of our neighbors... Not knowing who we can trust... If you have any type of concern related to trust, forced loyalties, or actually seen these happening in real time, then these books will also confirm that living like this is just wrong... THIS is the value of reading these books. For shock value! We cannot allow our world to change to such an extent that there is no other place to turn--that there is nothing but hate for another group who hates you just as much. If you do not see what could happen... If you say to yourself or others within your family that something like this trilogy could never happen--and, yes, it has been said--then, just consider reading these books... Allow yourself to conceive of nothing but a few people, continuing to fight, while cultish people who have the same goals of money and power... or hatred for anything different from them... Or realize that many seek the money that goes with power most of all... You will realize that each one of us need to survive, have basic needs met--food, clothing shelter... Maslow's Hierarchy shows this "reality" best and illustrates my thoughts...
Unless our basic needs are met--specifically if you lose your job during the present crisis of administration destruction, you will move backward to the point where your basic needs cannot be met and fear sets in... Each individual or parent worries about food and housing... Many never go beyond those two levels... Yet, this theory has been accepted that if we help all individuals move upward, capitalism will automatically improve because of the individual's ability to find self-actualization... When we recognize that these first two even interfere with our need for love and companionship, we begin to see, perhaps, why divorce is so common... Consider:
We have a need for love, companionship and trust for somebody else so that we do not feel alone... Then, and only then, can you read these books as just fiction...
Or has dystopia finally taken over because not enough people are fighting greed, power, even incompetence, while using power, greed, violence, and even religion to justify death or disappearing to all who are not loyal to the last man standing???
I'm a person who believes in timing--and the audience--What a book provides to each individual can and will affect where we see our lives in relation to our needs... Right now, many are concerned about having a job or being fired for no reason... Or being taken off the streets because you have tattoos or are not white... our basic needs are not being met. We are caught. We know we can't possibly go backward in our lives...But somebody with power and money, who wants more, has placed criminal actions above all else in deciding what is to happen... It is simply not sustainable in any world... Fiction, Non-Fiction, Or a world created by violence and criminal actions leaving all within a dystopian world of chaos... Reading these books made it very clear what must be done...
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