Time Fixers (Miles in Time Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Continues with a Timeless Volume

 Time Fixers (Miles in Time Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Continues with a Timeless Volume 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Well The Hardy Boys are at it again. No, not those Hardy Boys. Simon and Miles Hardy, the time traveling brothers from Lee Matthew Goldberg’s 2-Part YA Science Fiction Time Travel series. The first volume, Miles in Time, involved the adventurous detective Miles going back in time to prevent his scientific technogeek older brother, Simon from being murdered by unidentified assailants. He saved his brother but made a mortal enemy in Omni, the secret sinister organization that put the initial target on Simon’s back. 

The second volume, Time Fixers is a stronger, more personal, and also more focused adventure that raises the conflicts. This time Simon is able to improve his time travel device to travel beyond the previous week. Instead it can send the traveler back to 1999. For the brothers, that means one important thing. In the present, their mentally ill mother is institutionalized. They can go back to when she was in high school and resolve the family trauma that led to her years of addiction and mental illness. The brothers are not alone. Miles told his girlfriend, Maisie about the previous time traveling adventures. She comes with, hoping to resolve a family conflict of her own with her missing mother. The trio become embroiled in not only their own family histories but the origins of Omni whose members might be all too familiar to them.

In the first book, the focus was on adventure with some family drama thrown in. This one reverses that by devoting more time on the family drama and minimizing the adventure but still making it an important part.

There is deep trauma that is explored particularly with Miles and Simon's mother, Patty. When they left her, she was addicted to pills, spoke in monosyllables and non sequiturs, and committed self-harm. The years of being broken and non-functional took their toll. She is lost to her family in the present so the brothers want to change her past.

Once they see Patty's family, Simon and Miles understand their mother more. Before they pitied and cared for her. Miles in particular often nursed her when his father, Kip could not. However, as much as they missed the loving and involved woman that she briefly was when they were small, she is now a remote cypher to them. They can't break through her precarious vulnerable exterior and have given up trying to communicate with her. She is less a mother to them and more of an object of pity, concern, and frustration.

In the past, they see their mother as a feisty multifaceted emotional girl who is hurt at home and trying different means to detach herself from that hurt. The brothers focus on the causes of what made their mother turn out the way that she did rather than the effects of what it created. Patty is a person who had her life ahead of her and could have lived it openly and creatively with plenty of love, acceptance, and support but was stopped by  abusive and narcissistic parents. The boys have to rescue their mother not only from her toxic home but from herself and the woman that she turns into.

Patty isn't the only person that the boys and Maisie try to help. They try to prevent a tragedy in Kip’s young life that left him withdrawn and falling into self-isolation. Maisie also recognizes her parents' struggles and insecurities so she doesn't end up alone. The teens are given insights into their parents as people, kids like them who were uncertain, confused, awkward, idealistic, intelligent, rebellious, immature, curious, surly, argumentative, cynical, and ready to challenge the world that their kids would later inherit. They are going through the same struggles about identity, acceptance, and belonging that their children are going through in the 2020’s.

There are  other aspects of the book that shine. There are  humorous moments when Simon, Miles, and Maisie go to the past and gape at the weird fashions, old fashioned technology, and the music. There are also clever references about the time period that border on nostalgic.

The adventure also goes through some fascinating twists, climaxes, and resolutions. The trio are stalked by enemies that use a variety of means like threats, manipulation, and feigning friendship to find their technology, divide, and destroy them.

It's also interesting to see Omni in its earlier form as a small organization with few employees but nefarious goals before its 2020's incarnation as a widespread conspiracy with various members, outlets, and schemes. We also see how the agents got involved with this organization, why they joined, and why they stayed when conscience should have told them otherwise. Similar to their parents, the kids see their adversaries as people who had reasons for what they did and could have lived different lives. Instead they chose a path that led to financial gain, corruption, violence and self-destruction.

Time Fixers is a brilliant book about how choice and trauma shaped our past and created our present. It also happens to be a great thrilling adventure to spend time with. 

Miles in Time: A YA Time Travel Mystery (Miles in Time Series Book 1) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Series Has Suspenseful Engaging First Volume

 Miles in Time: A YA Time Travel Mystery (Miles in Time Series Book 1) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Series Has Suspenseful Engaging First Volume 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Lee Matthew Goldberg has a tendency to give his Readers a wild ride. Slow Down was a drug trip about a Hollywood hopeful who gets involved with an experimental film that gets too experimental and deadly. Orange City is about a copywriter in a futuristic society who samples a drink that is used to drug and ultimately control the people. The Mentor features an editor who is stalked by an author who turns to violence and murder for inspiration. The Desire Card is a five volume series about several people who become involved with a nefarious organization that promises their deepest desires but with strict payments and penalties that are literally real killers. His latest, Miles in Time, is more conventional as it is written for a YA readership, but it still retains much of the suspense, tension, unpredictable chaos, and plot twists of its predecessors. 

Miles Hardy is a teen with a fascination for mysteries so he opens up a private investigation service. Unfortunately, serious mysteries and crimes are hard to come by in small town Frontier, Iowa and he can only search for missing cats for so long. However, he is hit with a very serious crime when his secretive older brother, Simon, dies in what was originally believed to be suicide but evidence points to murder. Devastated but determined, Miles receives coded messages that SImon sent him in advance that leads him to a mysterious lab which holds Simon’s secret project: a time machine. Miles must use the time machine to travel to a week before his brother's death to save his life and find out who wants him dead.

Because Miles in Time crosses genres with Science Fiction and Mystery, it combines tropes from both to create an interesting amalgam of two separate tones and styles. In some ways both genres rely on curiosity. Science Fiction asks “What if?” and involves imagining possibilities and procedures to lead to the answer to that initial question. Mysteries often ask “What happened and who did it” and involve seeking clues and leads to come to a credible conclusion. Mysteries asks that you look around you while Science Fiction asks that you imagine what lies ahead but both are genres which involve discovery. 

That is what is at play here. Both Hardy Brothers go through their own individual quests of discovery to come to their conclusions. Simon spends his time in his lab, testing his theories about time travel, experimenting by sending his guinea pig Stinkers into the past, writing messages in code, and transcribing his notes into book form so Miles can understand and follow it. His goal is to prove that time travel is possible and that the past can be changed. His quest requires thought, intellect, and analysis of data.

Miles however is more physically than mentally active. He spends his time observing his surroundings for any changes in normal patterns, asking open ended questions that lead to potential leads, sneaking into forbidden places, and gathering clues in a way that ties all of the evidence together to draw conclusions. His goal is to find his brother’s murderer and to defeat potential enemies. His quest requires strength, courage and attention to detail. 

There are many suspenseful moments that occur during Miles’s trip to the past. No one is above suspicion. Miles investigates the school bully, Simon’s clique, his detached father, his mentally ill mother, a teacher who appears to have encouraged Simon’s pursuits, and a curious and attentive girl that Miles is attracted to. There is also a mysterious organization that hampers Miles’s investigation, seem to know a great deal about Simon’s experiment, and aren't afraid to get violent if need be even towards kids. It’s a tight plot with plenty of dangerous situations that Miles has to use his wits to escape from. It’s the kind of book that keeps the Reader fascinated with the various questions and Miles’ pursuit in answering them. 

There is also plenty of emotional depth in the book that thankfully doesn’t get in the way of the overall suspenseful and inquisitive tone. There are a lot of soft emotions in Miles’ relationship with his mother for example. She is a haunting presence as someone who lives in a semi-catatonic state in which she is awake and is able to move but is mentally separated from her family. She says very little except the occasional non sequitur rages and moves so seldomly that she has to be fed and given medicine by hand. She is like a dependent frightened child but occasionally she seems to know or understand more than she can admit. The brothers and their father clearly love her but are overwhelmed and anxious about her slipping away from her family. 

Miles and Simon's fraternal relationship is the real soul of the book. The chapter where Miles discovers Simon’s body is heartbreaking as is his anguish and remorse over the distance between the two brothers. During his time travel adventure, Miles stays by his brother’s side pretending that he is interviewing him for a school assignment and is able to see the world through Simon’s perspective. The time travel and the investigation gives Miles and Simon an opportunity to understand, empathize, and bond with one another. 

Ironically, Miles’ time in the past is the longest most pleasant experience that the two brothers shared in years. They are able to repair a relationship that was once close when they created imaginary worlds and secret codes but has become distant when maturity, puberty, and different interests and perspectives got in the way. Miles may have traveled through time to save Simon, but it was clear that the brothers needed to save each other. 

As with many ongoing series, Miles in Time leaves some questions unanswered and some plot points unresolved for the next volume. This first volume is a strong sharp start and hopefully the next volume will continue to be that way. 

Weekly Reader: The Mentor by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Author-Editor Conflict Becomes Suspenseful, Bloodier, and Deadlier Than Usual

 Weekly Reader: The Mentor by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Author-Editor Conflict Becomes Suspenseful, Bloodier, and Deadlier Than Usual

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: One thing that I will say as an Editor and Book Reviewer, no matter how often I disagree with authors, I am glad that our disagreements don't go the way of William Lansing and Kyle Broder in Lee Matthew Goldberg's The Mentor. This psychological thriller takes the never ending struggle between authors and editors and twists it to violent and deadly means.

Professor William Lansing is delighted to learn that his former student, Kyle Broder, has attained superstar status in the publishing world. The young editor gets the credit for discovering and editing the debut novel of rising star author, Sierra Raven. William thinks that Kyle would be the perfect editor to pitch his magnum opus, Devil's Hopyard, to. After all, William had been working on the book for ten years and he helped Kyle out when he was a troubled addicted college student so…favors?

Unfortunately, William's manuscript is an incredibly disturbing look into the mind of a deranged psychopath. Worst of all, it's a badly written incredibly disturbing look into the mind of a deranged psychopath. It's about the rape, murder, and cannibalism of a young woman and hits too close to home for Kyle's liking.

Kyle has no intention of publishing it and let's just say William does not take constructive criticism well. His desire for literary fame becomes an obsession and his means to achieve it become violent. Soon, Kyle begins to wonder how much of William's work is the product of a writer's imagination and how much of it is based on true events.

Just like with Goldberg's previous books, Slow Down, Orange City, and The Desire Card series, The Mentor shows the dangers of unbridled ambition and what happens when one's ambitions overpower their sense of ethics, morality, legality, and basic humanity. They become someone to be feared, someone who believes that the end justifies the means, any means, no matter who suffers.

William has that kind of ambition. He is definitely someone who we can't separate the art from the artist. Everyone around him and everything that he does is just material for his book. It's hard to tell whether he had these graphically violent thoughts before he wrote them or being a writer came first and he found gruesome inspiration. Either way, he sees everyone as characters in his novel that he could do the most horrific things or make them do the worst things and they act according to the orders of him, the author.

Kyle is a more sympathetic character since he is the one getting stalked and gaslit, but he also has an unchecked ambitious side. He rejects William's manuscript because he finds it disturbing, but at first he is less concerned about the content than about what it would mean for his reputation. He is a rising star attached to a couple of potential bestsellers, a coming of age novel and a crime thriller, surefire hits. Kyle does not want his star to be hitched to a poorly written and potentially controversial work. He is not concerned about the potential loss of life and confession of an actual crime rather than what it would mean if his name was attached to it. It's only when William's desire for fame and violent tendencies affect Kyle personally that he realizes just how deadly William's desires are.

Some of the other characters in The Mentor aren't as clearly defined. A rival of Kyle's sucks up to William until it becomes feasible not to. Kyle's girlfriend, Jamie, plays the usual love interest character who at first doesn't believe that the protagonist is being stalked until they too become a victim. Sierra becomes a pawn in Kyle's chance for stardom and ultimately William's chance for notoriety. Everyone is collateral in this one-on-one battle.

The final chapters of The Mentor are drenched in irony as things turn on its head and the drive for ambition becomes one of infamy. William gets his stardom in the worst way possible and Kyle has to live with the consequences. 

New Book Alert: Desire's End (The Desire Card Series Book Five) Predictable but Satisfying and Cathartic End

 

New Book Alert: Desire's End (The Desire Card Series Book Five) Predictable but Satisfying and Cathartic End 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: If you haven't yet, I insist that you read either my reviews or the books themselves: Immoral Origins, Prey No More, All Sins Fulfilled, and Vicious Ripples by Lee Matthew Goldberg before reading this review. This review contains MAJOR HEAVY DUTY SPOILERS!!!!

Ready? Then let's go.

Now we finally come to the end. The Desire Card and its depraved demonic leader, Jay Howell AKA Clark Gable come to a satisfactory completion.

This book is pure resolution, where all loose ends are tied, all things are revealed, and the characters meet their final destinies. All previous volumes have led to this moment and head towards the final successful pay off.

If you have grown to detest Howell as much as this Reader has, it's quite satisfying to see him brought down in a schadenfreude sort of way. On the run from his various enemies, he attempts to kidnap Gracie, his granddaughter and unsuccessfully rebuild his empire. This goes quickly awry and he is forced to hide out in the jungle.

In hiding, he encounters a female shaman who gleefully shows him the eventual ruin of his empire and his life.

Meanwhile, three other people are fast approaching, all familiar to the Readers: J.D. Storm, former assassin turned enemy, Monica Bonner, police detective who investigated Gracie's previous kidnapping and cannot stop her investigation against the Desire Card, and Helene Howell-Stockton, Jay's daughter, a philanthropist who has finally realized that her father is a monster who needs to be stopped. Even the shaman has her own pound of flesh to take from the corrupt CEO/Crime Boss.

It helps to take satisfaction in Howell's end by not making him sympathetic. He's a weasley bully who uses everyone around him in the beginning and is a weasley bully who uses everyone around him at the end. No part shows this more than the chapters between Howell and Gracie.

Gracie was an unwilling pawn in Vicious Ripples but during her captivity from J.D., she displayed some potential sociopathic tendencies that suggest that she was meant to become Jay's little heiress. 

In the previous book, she cold bloodedly shot another kidnapper.

In this book the young lady displays her worst qualities as almost a way of saying, "Look Grandpa Jay, look what I can do. See what a good little girl I am?" She manipulates girls to join her grandfather's prostiution ring and uses her ballet skills to create a dancing school front for the ring. Even when she is separated from Howell, she still inherits his evil tendencies by selling hard drugs to schoolmates.

Of all the things that Howell did in the five books, his manipulation of Gracie is the worst. He made the choice to take a life of crime as an adult, fully aware of the potential paths that lay before him. He chose the path of easy money, notoriety, and luxury.

Gracie is a child surrounded by adults who come to her grandfather like he's the Pied Piper of crooks. She has been groomed to become a criminal with no choice or chance to be normal. Now that she knows, she can't live in denial. Her innocence has been forever ruined by Howell's actions and choices. Her own agency and control for her future had long been taken away from her.

J.D., Monica, and Helene are as wounded as ever and are ready to end Howell's hold on them once and for all. The book covers a period of several years, so there are moments of hope and sadness. Helene loses some important people in her life, but finally becomes closer to her hippy boyfriend, Peter. She is trying to rebuild a new life and wants to cut her former life as a Howell and a Stockton. 

Helene was a philanthropist just to make her family look good. Since then, she became involved in philanthropy in earnest because she knows about loss and pain. She sees others sufferings. She has a chance to be a better person and she won't let her father take that from her.

J.D. and Monica also find a new life in a surprising place….with each other. It's a pairing that seems abrupt but considering that they have suffered tremendous loss and have a shared history (even if it was once as opposite sides of the law), the initial weirdness disappears. 

J.D.'s girlfriend, Annie was killed by Desire Card operatives, feeding his thirst for revenge. Now his vengeance is gone, he just floats along, finding a place of quiet and solitude.

While Monica's son died from an illness, her grief fuelled her search for Gracie and put her right into Howell's orbit.

She also resigned her police position and is trying to live a stress free life.

Monica meets J.D. trying to rebuild his life and the two hook up. Despite their burgeoning relationship, they can't put their past behind them until they face Howell one final time.

Another character with her own interesting backstory is the shaman. Her story is too enticing to reveal in this review but let's say the series finally comes full circle and if anyone has a major ax to grind against Howell, it's her. She uses intimidating physical threats and her supernatural abilities to show the literal and figurative monster that Howell is and why so many people would like to see the back of him. The shaman gives Howell his final comeuppance in a way that is long predicted but ultimately satisfying and cathartic.

Desire's End is the perfect ending to an exciting and suspenseful series. After all the twists, turns, duplicity, and betrayal, it's great to see this card get canceled on a high note.

New Book Alert: Vicious Ripples (The Desire Card Book Four) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Fourth Desire Card Book Brings Things to the Falling Action Act

 

New Book Alert: Vicious Ripples (The Desire Card Book Four) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Fourth Desire Card Book Brings Things to the Falling Action Act

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Stop! Before you read this review, I must give you a homework assignment. Please read either the previous books or my reviews for the other books in the Desire Card Series: Immoral Origins, Prey No More, and All Sins Fulfilled. I am going to reveal some important things in this review and I do not want any Reader to go in unprepared. Needless to say this review contains MAJOR HEAVY DUTY SPOILERS!!!!!

You back and prepped? Okay good, on we go.

Any follower of Shakespeare's plays knows that each play follows a basic five act structure. Act 1 is the introduction, Act 2 is the rising action, Act 3 is the climax, Act 4 is the falling action, and Act 5 is the resolution.

Lee Matthew Goldberg's five volume The Desire Card Series is Shakespearean in structure (and come to think of it in theme and characterization as well).

The first volume Immoral Origins was the Introduction. It introduced us to the Desire Card organization and their beginnings in the 1970's as they grant the wishes of the wealthy for a price. We meet the employees operating in disguise as Hollywood stars such as newcomer Erroll Flynn and the Card's enigmatic founder, Clark Gable. We see the rivalry formed between Gable and head of the European branch, Sir Laurence Olivier and what happens when Flynn tries to get away and revert back to his original identity of petty thief, Jake Barnum.

The second volume, Prey No More is the rising action, set forty years later when the Desire Card has gained power and influence in various business and political circles. They have operators all over the world and one of them, J.D. Storm AKA James Dean, goes on the lam. This results in lots of murders and J.D.'s hatred and thirst for revenge against the card and the people behind it.

All Sins Fulfilled the third book is the climax when well to do, Harrison Stockton needs a liver transplant and solicits a certain card to fill that request. This ends in some major revelations that reveal the people behind the masks, particularly Gable who is much closer than Harrison had previously been aware. It also culminates in J.D.'s act of revenge against Gable, the Card, and all it stands for.

The fourth volume, Vicious Ripples, is the falling action demonstrating what happens after the earth shattering revelations from All Sins Fulfilled are revealed.(The next volume, Desire's End appears to be the resolution where the Card and its treacherous founder come to their long overdue finish.)

Vicious Ripples is set immediately after J.D. Storm, now using the name Marcus Edmonton, has kidnapped 10 year old Gracie Stockton, the daughter of Harrison Stockton and his ex-wife, Helene Howell. Besides combining the protagonists from the previous two volumes, the kidnapping is for a darker and more serious reason. 

Gracie is the granddaughter of Jay Howell, businessman and multi billionaire. Oh yeah and Howell has another important distinction, a side hustle if you will. He is the creator and founder of the organization behind a certain card that we have been familiar with for the past year.

That's right, Jay Howell is also known to the Readers as Clark Gable, the mysterious and sinister head of the Desire Card. 

J.D.'s demands are simple. He wants the Desire Card disbanded for good. Also, he's not the only one who is after Howell/Gable. 

Harrison has his own unresolved issues with his former father in law. Howell's European rival, Oliver AKA Sir Laurence  Olivier (wow original) wants to cut into the competition. Ambitious and driven, Detective Monica Bonner is overcoming her personal loss by investigating Gracie's kidnapping and some mysterious deaths connected to the card. Gee, it seems like creating an organization that thrives on theft, drug dealing, murder, and other illegal nefarious acts to fulfill other's darkest desires seems like a bad idea since in the end it creates so many enemies who would like to see one dead. Who would have thought?

Even though many things were revealed in the previous volume and this one, there are still enough twists and turns to make Volume Four a good read. In fact, it's better than All Sins Fulfilled because there aren't as many slow parts which bring down the protagonist until they discover the card and start using it. By this point, the Reader knows about the Card, how it's used, and who the players are. The question is what are they going to do as their world comes crashing down around them?

Of course if you are a Narcissistic master criminal like Howell, you are going to do one of two things: scheme against your enemies and get as much as you can or if you go down, you take everyone else with you. Either way, Howell is backed into a corner and is going to strike at his enemies.

His few remaining supporters are like the last survivors on the Titanic still clinging to their Hollywood identities: Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Mae West, and a new James Dean. Many of them are freelancers who stick with Howell for financial gain. Others because they have nowhere else to go. Still others, namely Audrey and Dean, have personal reasons to stick close to their fearless leader. It is a sad pathetic group that remains, not like the far reaching, intimidating, glamorous, and hedonistic Desire Card operatives of the past.

It's also pretty clear that Howell uses these operatives like he uses everyone else. While he does have the capacity to care for certain people and is genuinely worried about Gracie, the narrative makes it clear that he values the Desire Card over everything else. 

Now that Howell's mask has been removed and his true self has been revealed, he is shown to be a self centered despicable creep who would sacrifice anyone to keep his operation running. (Not going to miss this guy once he's gone.)

It is interesting the various ways in which Howell's enemies go through to take him down, never actually combining their resources to fight the common enemy (Maybe that will be saved for Volume Five). Oliver uses his own card connections such as a couple of traitors in Howell's midst and his own operatives like Evchen, his second who assumes the identity of Marlene Dietrich. He fights duplicity with duplicity and strives to be every bit as cunning as his rival.

Monica uses the law and her own detective instincts. Because she also suffered the loss of a child, she relates to the Stocktons even though she is not in their socioeconomic class. She, like Helene, is a grieving mother and wants to relieve Gracie's parents of the burden of loss that she lives with every day. In a series full of criminals, illegal activity, and narcissists galore, Monica Bonner is the lone moral center.

While Harrison is out for the count through most of the book, he and Helene use their family connection and inside knowledge of Howell's home life and what he does when he's not in the mask. In fact, much of the intel is provided by overhearing conversations and searching through private files. It also opens up a lot of development for Helene who was once Daddy's Little Spoiled Pampered Princess and now has to face the truth about her father and where her rich life came from.

J.D.'s course of revenge is by far the strongest and most gripping. He was once a hitman with a heart of gold who walked out on the Desire Card when he began to question their methods. He had a chance to build a decent post-Desire life and then lost it all.

Now in Vicious Ripples, he has become everything that he once despised. A ruthless assassin with no conscience and is willing to hurt innocents to get his needs met. He is the final result of what the Desire Card turns people into: remorseless monsters with nothing left to lose.

Some of J.D.'s best moments are when he is with Gracie. The flickers of conscience still remain as he watches over the girl and tries to explain who her grandfather really is. He also watches in bemusement and horror as Gracie begins to accept her grandfather's identity and even absorbs some of the lessons that the adults around her are teaching. She learns them all too well in some very horrifying scenes that suggest that she too is the final result of the Desire Card's sinister dealings and Howell's insatiable avarice.

As great as this volume is, there are two rather questionable things. In one chapter during a confrontation between Howell and an enemy, something strange, sinister, and almost supernatural happens. It seems to come out of nowhere but perhaps it is an intentional callback to an earlier theory about the Card's origins. (Now with that scene, is the theory back on the table?)

The other question is a missed opportunity, or rather a missing piece to the revenge puzzle. We have seen most of the previous protagonists take on the Desire Card save one, Jake Barnum, the main character in Immoral Origins. While yes his death at the ending of the first volume would mean he can't be there physically, it's upsetting that some plot threads in that book were left dangling and he isn't there in spirit.

Jake's former girlfriend, Desire operative Marilyn Monroe, was alive, well, and remained a Card operative at the end of Immoral Origins. That's the last we hear from her and she makes no reappearance nor is referred to in subsequent volumes. You think that since Jake couldn't be there, at least Marilyn or better yet a potential offspring of theirs, could be there to settle an old score. (Of course I may be getting ahead of myself. Desire's End may answer that question.)

Well, the only thing left is a resolution. It will be interesting to see what happens when Desire's End takes a pair of scissors and finally cuts the card.

New Book Alert: All Sins Fulfilled (The Desire Card Book 3) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; The Desire Card, a Customer's Story

 

New Book Alert: All Sins Fulfilled (The Desire Card Book 3) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; The Desire Card, a Customer's Story

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: One thing that I have learned in reading The Desire Card series, if one ever uses that card identity theft is the least of their concerns. In fact by the time Desire's leader, Clark Gable and his cohorts are through with their hapless customer, they would hope that their identity would have been the only thing that was taken.

In this volume in Lee Matthew Goldberg's addictive and intense psychological thriller crime series, the point of view shifts from Gable's employees and underlings to a customer, the wealthy folk who are given the card and the promise that any wish will be fulfilled for the right price.

This latest victim on Gable's hit list is Harrison Stockton. Unlike the previous lead characters Jake Barnum and J.D. Storm, Harrison is high up on the economic scale. He climbed from a lower middle class upbringing to marry wealthy heiress, Helene Howell. He works in Mergers & Acquisitions while Helene is involved in various philanthropic organizations. They live in a swank apartment on Fifth Avenue and have two children named Gracie and Brenton and a cat named Chauncey. Harrison seems to have everything but then just as quickly ends up with nothing.

He loses his cushiony job. His troubled argumentative marriage with Helene ends in separation. We can't even say at least Harrison still has his health because he learns that he has liver disease and needs a transplant. After a suspenseful, if a bit overlong, section in India where Harrison searches for a possible donor and surgeon only to learn that he has been conned, he turns his attention to a card that his former boss gave him. A card that earlier had granted his wish for a prostitute and now says that he will be given a liver. A card that is new to him but far from new to the Reader: The Desire Card.

In the third volume to the series, it is great that we are given an outsider's perspective to the Card. In the first two volumes, we are told that the Card honors the wishes of the wealthy elite. Now, we see one of the wealthy elites that benefit from the Desire Card's services and pays for people like Jake and J.D. to live and fill their own wishes. We see that getting one's wishes fulfilled and being a Desire client isn't any better than being an employee. There are still strings attached, violent bloody strings, and the wealthy client that gets those services can be just as imprisoned and just as in danger as the poor employee that does those services. In Harrison's case, he realizes that his wealth and connections won't protect him from the Desire's real schemes. 

In his own way, Harrison is just as lost as Jake and J.D. are. He was insulated from the real world in his climb to the top. When he is face to face with this violent world, Harrison's conscience gets the better of him and he realizes that he can't let innocent people suffer so he can get his wishes met. When Harrison realizes the cost, his own life is threatened. As we all know, once the Desire Card has you, they aren't the type to let you go.

What is missing from this volume is the secrecy and eccentricity of the previous books in the series. We only see the Hollywood masked hoodlums a few times so they aren't as present as they were in the past. In fact the ones that we do meet are familiar in their assumed and real identities: James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Rita Hayworth, et al. Yep, it's the exact same characters from Prey No More. In fact, it becomes apparent that All Sins Fulfilled serves as a midquel to Book 2 so we actually do know who some of those masked men and women are anyway.

What All Sins Fulfilled lacks in secrecy, it finally makes up for in answers. We finally get some solutions to the questions that have been hounding this series since Immoral Origins. I dare not reveal them, but it makes sense that Goldberg saves the big reveals for this volume, where it makes the biggest impact.

It also is cleverly revealed because there were hints in the previous books that this was the trajectory and plan all along. It will be fun for the amateur armchair detective to go back through the series and locate the clues that had been staring at us in the face for three books.

However, there is some wiggle room in the answers that we are given to call more tantalizing theories and ask questions that could still happen.

The timing of Prey No More and All Sins Fulfilled occurring at the same time and the answers that we are finally given in All Sins make the climactic ending in Prey No More even more traumatizing. Goldberg has at least two more volumes in the series. Book 4 demands for a confrontation, possibly a final resolution. I'm not sure what is in store for Book 5, maybe a prequel on how the Desire Card began. Whatever it is, my greatest wish right now is to read what happens.

New Book Alert: Prey No More (The Desire Card Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; More of the Good, Creepy, and Sinister Same

 

New Book Alert: Prey No More (The Desire Card Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; More of the Good, Creepy, and Sinister Same

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Just when you thought it was safe to use your credit card, the Desire Card team is back to severely cut your throats-uh interest rates. Well before they cut your throat, your organs, and the organs of your closest friends and family members.

Set approximately 40 years after the first book Immoral Origins, the antagonists of Lee Matthew Goldberg's creepy and sinister crime thriller series have grown their operation exponentially. Once in a hideout near Hell's Kitchen New York, the main office is in a swank penthouse. Instead of wearing human-like masks of Old Hollywood stars, the do badders can now opt to get surgery to look like the stars of yesteryear. Some don't even don the Hollywood identities, so a Desire Card employee could be anyone: your lover, your mother, the hotel desk clerk, that nice old lady across the street, anybody.

Once with two offices in New York and London (with the London office only having two employees), Desire now has offices and operators all over the world and have their fingers in just about every corrupt activity going on. What hasn't changed are the Old Hollywood identities that many who work for the card live under, though now not everyone, and that the entire outfit is still overseen by the amoral enigmatic Clark Gable.

The protagonist in this one couldn't be more different from the predecessor's Jake Barnum AKA Erroll Flynn, if he tried. Instead we get J.D. Storm, Iraqi War vet and former sniper, now operating under the name and guise of James Dean. Instead of the wide eyed petty crook that Jake was, J.D. has been in the Desire Card game for some time. He has acquired a reputation for good marksmanship and ruthless efficiency. He and his partner, Humphrey Bogart are not to be trifled with.

Unfortunately, J.D. has a handicap that prevents him from being 100% good at his job. He is afflicted with a terminal case of conscience. He hesitates to go after a young woman and then when he and Bogart are to kill a man in front of his young son, J.D. refuses and goes into hiding. The Desire Card do not take resignation lightly. I mean he didn't even give two week's notice-rude! So, J.D. is on the run and never knowing when the Desire Card will catch up to him or who is affiliated with them.

Besides this, we also go into the background of J.D's life before he joined the card and how he got involved. He grew up in a small town in Washington state and had a girlfriend, Annie, who worked as a mark for a gang of thieves. She used her body to distract cashiers and clerks while her colleagues robbed them. J.D. suggested that she could go legit. In response to that suggestion, Annie left to join her gang and J.D. left to join the Army.

While on the battlefield, J.D. was trained as a sniper, only to be shot in the eye which could be detrimental for a sniper (no depth perception). So upon returning home, J.D. gets an eye patch and an overwhelming feeling of PTSD. He joins a support group which includes a woman named Rita, who looks a great deal like Rita Hayworth. Guess who she works for?

This beginning and the chapters where J.D. returns to his small town and reunites with Annie reveal the type of character that J.D. was and might still have been if the Desire Card hadn't gotten hold of him. He was once a good guy who couldn't stand to see innocents suffer. He was protective of abused women and children. During his time with the Card and even during his exile from them, his once idealistic protective nature is crushed. By the end he becomes the very monster that he once feared, one who will willingly kill the innocent without conscience, to get even with someone else.

What is revealed throughout this volume is how much The Desire Card has grown in size, prominence, and means. One way this is evident is in the recruitment process of new agents. In Immoral Origins, Jake and other newbies wore faceless masks and did petty crimes like delivering drugs and other suspicious packages before moving up to big crimes and Hollywood names. J.D. did not go through that. He was handed the James Dean mask right away and given murderous assignments instantly.

From a storytelling standpoint, it makes sense that Goldberg wanted to skip this part since he didn't want to repeat himself but it also reveals something more sinister about Desire's current practices. They don't test the recruits because they don't have to. They already know what they have done and are capable of doing. All they have to do is look up records, research names, find their weaknesses and strengths, and voila another star is added to their heavens or rather hells.

 Once a frightening organization hiding in the shadows, the Desire Card is now upfront and somehow more dangerous. Who knows how many CEO's, politicians, tyrants, celebrities, and people both famous and infamous have made deals with the Card? How many world events can be laid at the feet of Gable and Co.? How many innocent lives have been killed and operators rubbed out when they, like Jake and J.D., have seen the light? There is no telling and with an organization as large and as powerful as Desire Card, little chance of bringing them down.

After all, since we the Readers and the characters know very little about how the Desire Card operates, it could go on forever. There is a strong possibility, even suggested in the text, that the identities behind the mask change. There are a couple of Old Hollywood identities that I know for sure cannot be the same characters in the previous book. Also who's to say that this Gable is the same person as before? 

In the 70's, Gable was more than likely middle aged and had been around for some time to create and organize the card and learn what he knew about the people behind him. That he is still alive and active is possible, but not likely. Though if he is the same man as before, it does bring some interesting possibilities as we learn more about him (and definitely crosses out one of my previous theories about him). 

We learn that this Gable has a family including an adorable granddaughter and Chip, a flamboyantly gay son, whom he gives out of the way jobs to get rid of him. Chip especially bears an intriguing speculation. He's about late 30's to early 40's which meant that he might have been born around the same time or right after Immoral Origins. So if Gable is the same man as before, Chip's mother may also be a familiar figure from Book 1 as well. 

As the Desire Card becomes larger, their stranglehold on their agents and clients become that much greater. They are practically unstoppable. Who knows how much larger they can grow and how many are destroyed by Book 3? One thing is for certain, it will be as sinister, suspenseful, and as hard to put down as the rest.

New Book Alert: Immoral Origins (The Desire Card Book 1) by Lee Matthew Goldberg;. Suspenseful Crime Thriller About the Hidden Cost of Desire and Success

 

New Book Alert: Immoral Origins (The Desire Card Book 1) by Lee Matthew Goldberg;. Suspenseful Crime Thriller About the Hidden Cost of Desire and Success

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: What's on your reading list?

What if you had a card that would give you anything that you desired and removed any obstacle to obtain it? How satisfied would you be or would you want more? What if in obtaining your heart's desire, it involved the deaths of people? Maybe people you don't know, maybe a rival, but it could just as easily involve the death of a friend or family member? After all, the cost of this card is only your soul. Now would you do it?

This premise is explored in Lee Matthew Goldberg's The Desire Card series and particularly its first volume, Immoral Origins. As with his previous novels, Slow Down and Orange City, Goldberg shows the perils of cold blooded pure unadulterated naked ambition and its effect on a small time guy who is playing in bigger more dangerous leagues.

Jake Barnum, our protagonist, is a petty crook going nowhere fast. He just got out of prison and is left homeless and unemployable. He then moves back in with his parents and his mentally challenged brother, Emile. He is subjected to his parent's poverty which is revealed by the frequent visits to the hospital and medical bills to diagnose Emile's condition and his father working two jobs and getting only two hours of sleep per day. Jake's relationship with his girlfriend, Cheryl is coming to an end. (After stealing her a tennis bracelet from Tiffany's, Jake finds out that she is seeing someone else.) His childhood friend, Maggs introduces him to his boss, Georgie who wants him to do "pick ups and deliveries" and not ask questions. In Hell's Kitchen New York in 1978, that type of job can only mean one thing and they aren't mail carriers.

One Halloween night, Jake, dressed as Erroll Flynn's Robin Hood, encounters a woman dressed as Marilyn Monroe and only answers to that name. Marilyn informs Jake that she works for a company that grants wishes, with the Desire Card. It's everywhere you want to be….whether you like it or not. 

Marilyn introduces Jake to her boss, an enigmatic man known only as Clark Gable because like Marilyn, he wears costumes and a mask resembling the Hollywood actor. In fact all of the Desire Card employees and elite guests dress up in the masks and costumes of old Hollywood stars. There is Bette Davis typing away every conversation in front of her, even small talk. Gregory Peck is ruthless in the job and in his relationship with Marilyn. Spencer Tracy is Gable's informant.  Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier  run the European branch. Now Jake has a new identity as Erroll Flynn. Marilyn says that it's a disguise to hide who the people really are from the outside world and themselves. Your Hollywood mask, don't leave home without it.

The Desire Card is meant to fulfill the holder's wishes whether it's to get more money, a promotion at work, or in Jake's family's case top notch medical care for a loved one. Gable and his operatives do anything to make those wishes come true. However, the means are less like Santa Claus and more like Al Capone or Jimmy Savile. They resort to kidnapping, theft, sexual assault, and murder to get the job done. They are also expanding their services into drugs and other extra "benefits" that come with having the card. The more that Jake profits from his time with the Desire Card, the greedier and more addicted he gets to power and success. After all, doing illegal deeds to meet one's desire: Expensive. Murdering other people: Costly. Selling one's soul: Priceless.

In this book, Goldberg does what he does best: shows how power and ambition could be an addiction and how often these little guys become swept in and end up becoming the deadliest force of all. Jake is like the petty crook in gangster films who robs stores and takes drugs thinking that makes him tough. Then he gets involved with a much bigger and deadlier group. Amidst the wild parties, frequent sex, and nights out in fancy restaurants, he realizes the darker side of his new friend and now that darker side is turned towards him. In the grand scheme of criminal activity, Jake is a small dog, a Yorkie, yipping at the heels of a pack of dobermans and acts surprised when they snarl their teeth and shed blood on him.

He enjoys the protection that they give him and the treatment that Emile receives. He also likes the flash and glamor that he is exposed to as he ascends higher in the organization. 

Jake at first has few moral concerns. As long as he's getting everything that he wants, he doesn't question the things that he has to do. Even after he expresses qualms about killing for the first job, he ends up becoming okay with it later-as long as the people he goes after are enemies or strangers. It's when they go after friends and family, that Jake questions his new life. Jak is an extremely egocentric selfish creep of a weak willed character who only has moral qualms when it personally involves him. That makes him the perfect victim for the people behind the card.

The Desire Card employees are an intriguing bunch because they are so mysterious. Their only identities are their Hollywood names and characters. I suppose we could infer from their chosen identities who they might have been. Maybe Bette was a tough gal who liked to be a Jezebel. Perhaps, Katharine came from a wealthy Connecticut background and Olivier might be a devotee of Shakespeare.

We learn a bit about Marilyn and everything about her backstory is similar to her character: the lost lonely young girl, the attraction to powerful dangerous men, the sadness hidden behind a glamorous facade. But the Reader only learns a little bit about her. She loves her identity as Marilyn so she insists that's all there is. Part of working for the Desire Card is to become their deepest desire.

The most mysterious of all is their leader, Gable. Everything that we learn about him is repeatedly proven or disproven. Does he have a family or doesn't he? How long has he been doing this? How does he find out everyone's desires and secrets? Is he just really good at obtaining informants or is there something else? Is there something supernatural at work here? After all, doesn't the Desire Card sound an awful lot like a deal with the devil? We learn nothing and see nothing except what Gable wants us to see.  It will be interesting to see how Gable and his subordinates continue to play out this mystery in the rest of the series.

Immoral Origins is great at dissecting what the hidden cost is obtaining power and success without a conscience. There are some books that explore this theme without success. For everything else, there's Immoral Origins.

New Book Alert: Orange City by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Terrifying Science Fiction Dystopia Will Scare The Colors Out Of You

 

New Book Alert: Orange City by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Terrifying Science Fiction Dystopia Will Scare The Colors Out Of You

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Lee Matthew Goldberg's previous novel, Slow Down was an ironic title of a book. It was a fast paced almost hallucinatory drug trip of a novel in which Noah, a young ambitious screenwriter gets involved with a creepy director's film project which involves several actresses becoming addicted to a drug called Fast which turns them homicidally violent.

So in this, his fifth novel, Orange City has Goldberg taken the predecessor title's advice and slowed down? Well, no. Instead he just has a wider more imaginative arena in which to explore these strange, bizarre, terrifying worlds.

Orange City is set in the future in a dystopian city called, original name, The City. The City is ruled by an omnipresent figure who is literally called The Man. (Thankfully, the common nouns used as proper names device ends there. So we don't run into other characters called The Woman, The Boy, The Girl, The Dog and don't encounter The Bar or The Restaurant.)

The Man is a creepy figure. He wears the same black suit and is fed a strange orange liquid intravenously, so he doesn't eat. His legs are distorted because of surgeries to make him taller. He has several arms connected to his body that are thin and branch-like giving him a spidery appearance. His red eyes are able to cyberoptically view the entire city. He has spies, technology, and a psychic seeming intuition that allows him to keep everyone and everything in the city under his watch and control. Anyone who disobeys can lose their appendages and end up in The Zone, the homeless district, or The Man's Scouts can send them to The Outside World, the area outside The City. The Man's appearance and demeanor are sort of like what would happen if 1984's Big Brother decided to retire and give control of Oceania over to Slenderman.

Underneath The Man's control are the Finances, districts with CEO's that control the banking, business, and advertising. In one way or another everybody works under The Man's ultimate direction, so yes they are in fact slaves to The Man. 

One of those workers is Graham Weathered, a meek little man who works for the advertising firm of Warton, Mind, and Donovan. Graham has been living in The City since he was 19, a scared abused former foster kid from The Outside World. He was given the option, as all convicted criminals are, to remain in the desolate war torn Outside World or start a new life with a job that promises benefits and constant surveillance in The City. Naturally, the naive Graham chooses Option B.

Years later, Graham is given his first real assignment. Warton, Mind, and Donovan are promoting a multi-flavored soda called Pow! His boss, E, wants him to test the various flavors and let them know what the results are. Graham needs some recognition from his employers,  would like to get ahead and does not want to be sent to the Zone. Plus, Graham has the spine of an amoeba and the nerves of a terrified toy dog, so he agrees. The only problem is that Pow! is addictive, really addictive, and it produces some strange side effects. It alters a person's emotions depending on the flavor.

Orange City is a brilliant novel that is a tribute to the Science Fiction Dystopia genre and a satire on advertising, greed, and corporate control. As Graham drinks the Pow! flavors, he takes on various facets of his personality. The orange flavor makes him passionate and sexual. Lime green makes him jealous and ambitious. Blueberry makes him depressed and thoughtful. Cherry Red makes him aggressive and homicidal. All of the emotions that a lifetime of abuse and constant surveillance and control have repressed have finally broken through and overwhelms him.

This book is a wonder to imagine and is one of the few that I would like to see become a movie or limited series because of how impressive it would look. One of the more visually captivating images are the constant changing colors around Graham. Each time he drinks a specific flavor, his eyes zero in and focus on that color on the walls, neon signs, and on people's clothing. Each time he is attracted to women wearing those specific colors or is invited to a club or a bar with that color name (The Citrus Club, Lime Lounge, Blue Moon, and Red Rum.) It would be neat to see any potential filmmaker engage in some interesting details like the walls in Graham's apartment changing color or the neon lights blazing in the background, unavoidable like stars. Goldberg clearly had a lot of fun writing the process of Graham and his mood swings and the shifting environment around him.

Besides setting, Goldberg also creates a memorable protagonist in Graham. Similar to characters like Winston Smith, Guy Montag, Offred/June, or Bernard Marx, Graham just accepts the System at first. He thinks that if he plays along and doesn't cause trouble, then he will live another day, without realizing that it doesn't matter how much he plays along. If that System sees those under them as less than human, they are expendable and completely disposable. They will be killed or exiled anyway, because they have no value as a human being or an individual. 

Graham follows the Man's orders, even temporarily accepts a higher position, more luxurious apartment, and larger stipend to be the Pow! spokesperson/product tester/guinea pig. When he becomes hopelessly addicted and characters appear and reappear to monitor him, even appearing in lucid dreams is when he starts to question what he got into. He also learns some revealing things about his past and what The Man's real goals are.  That's when he can no longer remain a passive participant and slave to The Man. He becomes an active rebel and fighter against those that have controlled him for most of his life.

Orange City is a book with a terrifying premise that questions how much advertising, corporations, and our own self interests control us. It could be as real as tomorrow. That thought is enough to scare the colors out of the Reader.

Weekly Reader: Slow Down by Lee Matthew Goldberg; A Dark Drug Fueled Thriller About Fame, Ambition, Addiction, and Selling One's Soul

Weekly Reader: Slow Down by Lee Matthew Goldberg; A Dark Drug Fueled Thriller About Fame, Ambition, Addiction, and Selling One's Soul

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: Lee Matthew Goldberg's novel, Slow Down, could be considered The Millennial Version of What Makes Sammy Run? In Budd Schulberg's 1941 novel/expose of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Sammy Glick, a shifty opportunistic copyboy steals screenplays, connives against rivals, beds and discards mistresses, and makes life a living Hell for those around him in his climb to the top of the Hollywood scene, only to find his success hollow and empty when there are others waiting to replace and destroy him.

Slow Down has characters that could be considered Sammy Glick's protegees. Only they have benefits from such modern tools as technology and drug use to their advantage.

Slow Down is a dark comedy of a book that seems like one long drug fueled trip into the excesses of fame, ambition, and selling one's soul to those who are better players in the ruthless game of instant celebrity.

Noah Spaeth, is a young ambitious writer with a big mouth who comes from a rich dysfunctional Central Park West family. In his early 20's, Noah has a troubled relationship with just about everyone in his life: from his constantly traveling parents, to his screwed up brother, to his spoiled sister, to his bitchy boss, to his long train of weird friends and clingy ex-girlfriends. Just recently he got fired from his job because he accidentally sent an insulting email to his boss. No problem, Noah says, he has time to focus on his writing and to finally get that one success story which will propel him to gaining that reputation as a bright young genius. Okay, he only has a margin of a idea for his novel with only a few scenes written and one character named Nina. But he is certain his time will come.

Noah's former girlfriend, aspiring actress, Nevie invites him to a swank party and introduces him to experimental filmmaker, Dominick Bambach. Dominick's previous success was an erotic thriller, Detached. His latest project is even more off the beaten path. It is Slow Down and will feature him only giving his actors a small semblance of a scene and have them react as he films. He wants to film their reactions and natural behaviors injecting realism to his production. Noah is fascinated with the project and would like to be mentored by Dominick, at least long enough to give his own career a boost.

Unfortunately, that fascination turns to revulsion when Noah is introduced to a drug called Fast, which produces psychotic after effects. He also encounters a few young actresses, working on Dominick's film, who have similar tattoos of a yellow circle and become insanely violent whenever that tattoo is touched. Could Dominick be so obsessed with filming a natural performance that he is willing to drug his actresses to get it?

Noah also has further questions when he encounters Dominick's wife, Isadora who seduces the young writer and questions her husband's writing and directing ability. Noah's ambitious drive increases and he plots to steal Dominick's movie and his wife.


Slow Down is one ironic title. Things move along at a regular pace, then something happens that speeds up the action to a dizzying pace. There are moments where you can't be sure if what you are reading is really happening, if Noah (or the Reader) is hallucinating, or if the action is completely fictional and instead just the product of a writer finally creating his magnum opus.

The drug scenes are terrifying because of the uncertainty. Many of the women go from bright, ambitious, attractive, budding starlets to animalistic homicidal maniacs, almost as a symbol of the control that Dominick and Noah have over them. Noah also goes through various drug trips with Fast that further confuses things and puts him at Dominick's mercy while he believes that he is in control.

When the yellow circle reappears in Noah's life, it is almost like a warning of terrifying lines that shouldn't be crossed.


The biggest drug in the book is not Fast, but ambition and it hits Noah hard. The more Noah becomes entangled with Dominick and his movie, the more he wants Dominick's life. He entertains notions of the lengths that he will go to pursue his goals from stealing the film to murdering Dominick and marrying Isadora. He beds Nevie and various other actresses to act on his frustrations of his wasted life. He conspires with Isadora so that he can replace Dominick by her side and obtain the filmmaker's reputation via osmosis.

Noah's ambitions are cold, but Noah is more like the little kid who robs cash registers in convenience stores then says, "I'm really bad, honest!" in front of a violent street gang who are ready to commit mass murder. Noah never realizes that he is playing in the big leagues until he reads the final draft of Slow Down and realizes that he is a figurative character just moving along in other people's schemes. He followed someone else's script and was controlled by other's machinations and his own ambitions.

Slow Down is a dark book that gets to the center of various kinds of addiction, not just drugs but fame and success as well. Noah started out brilliant, but angry that he was not put in a position for others to recognize that talent and drive. In the end, he may want fame but the fame is only temporary and once the excitement is done, he wants more. More success on his own terms, more money, a penthouse apartment, more dates, more beautiful mistresses, more drugs, more everything. The price when it comes down is that Noah is no longer in control, still the neurotic insecure mess that he always was, not directing and instead playing out other people's scripts.