BET YOUR LIFE(生死赌局)

出版时间：2002-12  出版社：HarperCollins Publishers  作者：Richard Dooling  页数：339  

内容概要

Dooling, who was an NBA finalist for his White Man's Grave a few years back, never writes the same kind of book twice, and this time he's produced a sort of techno-noir thriller set within the confines of the insurance business. The reader learns a great deal about insurance scams and the cynicism pervading the industry, and the Omaha setting is piquant for its contrast with the high-living, trendy insurance investigators who are the book's stars, but the book's virtues end there. The plot is extraordinarily convoluted, with villains both expected and unexpected popping up every few pages, and neither Carver Hartnett, the narrator; his alcoholic, pill-popping buddy, Leonard Stillmach, whose mysterious death precipitates the action; nor beautiful but apparently unattainable Miranda Pryor are either appealing or believable. Carver, for instance, plays teenage blow-'em-away computer games with Leonard, Miranda downs gallons of vintage wine while fending off Carver's advances and all are given to sudden pseudo-profound pronouncements. One scene, in which Carver goes after Miranda while spouting chunks of the Abraham and Isaac story from the Bible, only to have her reply in kind, is an over-the-top classic of weirdness. There are nice touches-a low-profile local homicide detective sneering at the high-tech FBI, for instance-but for the most part the book is a stylistically perplexing mess.     作者简介：    Richard Dooling, is a writer and a lawyer. His second novel, White Man's Grave, was a finalist for theNational Book Award, and he has also been a finalist for a National Magazine Award. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. He lives with his wife and children in Omaha and commutes online to Bryan Cave, LLP, in St. Louis, where he specializes in developing Web-based legal products.