Review of ‘Discretion’

Posted on January 24, 2014

Colin Wylie, as a teenager, has a crush on Natalie. He’s at a loss as to what to do about it until a disembodied female voice, Christel, pops into his head. From that point on, Colin’s life takes one strange turn after another. When Natalie is kidnapped, the voice tells Colin how to find and rescue her.

Years later Natalie’s case pops up again, and now Colin, a successful money manager – all with Christel’s help – must find out what really happened.

I received a free review copy of David Balzarini’s Discretion, and after reading the first ten pages, decided that, even though it’s not what I usually read, I liked it. Balzarini has a skill at writing tight dialogue that keeps the reader interested in the story and the characters, and a way of describing the setting that puts you in the picture, so to speak. Most interesting is how he deals with Christel in the story, – this disembodied voice; is she good or evil – leaving the reader wondering about this enigmatic character until the very end. While at times it’s a bit too much like a Greek deus ex machine, if you pay close attention to each of the voice’s appearances, it helps a bit in explaining subsequent actions.

All in all, a competently crafted first novel worthy of an evening’s read. It shows the author has the potential to do better.