Country: USA
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 318
I'm not too sure how I ended up reading The Summoner. I was contacted by Layton Green, but I had no idea who he was. He presented himself in a very professional manner and offered to send me his novel. I said yes, not fully aware that I had just signed up to review a self-published writer. That can be an enthralling experience, that can go really wrong, really quick. I'm happy that I did it, because I find it important to encourage emerging writers, but despite its killer story, The Summoner ended up storing more bad than good. I don't mean to bag on Layton Green or to turn to the clichés of the self-published business, but there are crucial flaws his novel that drained a lot of fun from the experience. I remember the first thing I answered to Layton Green when he offered me to send in his novel was that it didn't seem to hit my demographic, but I was going to give it a try. That was pretty much it.
The story of The Summoner is incredibly well crafted. A U.S diplomat disappears during a religious ceremony. He entered a circle of adepts and disappeared behind a well of smoke. Special Agent Dominic Grey, who happens to work at the U.S Embassy in Zimbabwe, is affected to the investigation. Tagging along to help him, local government agent Nya Mashumba and Religious Phenomenology professor Viktor Radek. The researcher, who also happens to be a giant (he's by far the most awesome character of the novel) explains Grey and Nya that the ceremony in question was run by the juju cult, a religion from where Haitian voodoo takes its roots. And you know how it is, the dad is always meaner and grittier. The practitioners of Juju are a bunch of happy loose cannons and soon enough Dominic Grey realizes that everybody is keeping information from him. And that might be for his own good.
Force is to admit, The Summoner is a turn-pager. It burned my fingertips and kept me reading despite the fact some chapters make me cringe. Like I said, it's a strong, well-detailed story that has a James Bond/Indiana Jones feeling to it. Layton Green crafted some badass villains. They are a lot of fun. Where's the problem then? The main cast. They are a little...weak. Dominic Grey in particular is not the man of the situation. He is a generic taciturn fighting machine with a bad past. No matter what spin you're putting on tha archetype, it will always feel overdone. Think of Grey as a mix of Horatio Caine, Dominic DaVinci and any character ever played by Jason Statham. Everything that defines him turns around the fact that he's mysterious, badass and sexy. He's one detail away from being a lot of fun. If he would've been a fifty years old botanist or a twenty years old surfer, it would've changed the dynamics. All we got is mysteriousness and fighting technique.
Literally every problem I had with The Summoner revolved around Grey. Whenever he's around, Green tends to indulge in overwriting. I don't have anything against prose, but it doesn't fit the story. I don't want my action heroes (because that's what Grey is) to "gaze at the cerulean sky". I want them focused on the task. What's so frustrating about the flaws of Dominic Grey, is that Layton Green has the perfect lead protagonist in his story in Viktor Radek. A man, well described by Dominic Grey as "walking to his own drum" (great analogy, I might steal in real life purposes). He is charismatic, rational and rebellious enough to carry the investigation, but somehow his emotional detachment translates in his quasi-absence from the bulk of the story. If I can give you an equivalent to The Summoner, L.A Requiem by Robert Crais comes to mind. It's a novel I had mixed feelings about, and it's the same thing with The Summoner. It was a decent read, but I don't have any incentive to follow up on Dominic Grey's adventures.
If you're curious about The Summoner and want to try it for yourself, here is a way to buy it. It might strike more of a chord with you than it did with me.
