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Desert Heart: 2 (Ellen Martin Disasters) by Mark Lingane (view source)
Revision as of 13:08, 5 September 2013
, 13:08, 5 September 2013no edit summary
Ten years have passed since [[Chasing Heart: 1 (Ellen Martin Disasters) by Mark Lingane|Chasing Heart]] and that moment that Ellen Martin met and fell in love with Alex Heart while he was attempting to extricate her from South American impending doom. We now catch up with them to discover that Ellen has ditched Alex, has become a partner in her law firm and is about to fly out to the Middle East for important business negotiations on behalf of a client. Ellen isn't known for staying out of trouble and the Middle East isn't known for its tolerance of the mischievously danger-prone. Therefore it's not long before Ellen needs a rescuer again and, yes, it's reunion time.
Australian author [[:Category:Mark Lingane|Mark Lingane]] is one of the most prolific authors in the industry at the moment. In the past 6 months he's treated us to a [[Beyond Belief by Mark Lingane|sci-fi detective noir]], that first Ellen and Alex story and now this second adventure. How can someone rattle these off at such speed? Where the ''Ellen Martin Disasters'' are concerned, Mark achieves this with an instinctive natural style that comes over as raunchy pantomime (so not for children)/summer lightness to be read as pure entertainment.
As in the case of panto, Ellen, Alex and their supporting cast don't need any depth of character and the odd moment of stereotyping fits in with the mood. Also, again as in pantomime, there are jokes distributed with a scatter gun approach, some working better than others. The wonderful gems of humour include a running gag that actually gets funnier as it goes along (a rare thing in comedy writing) contributing to some laugh-out-loud moments.