Locke puts out fine material at a pace that would give Stephen King and Danielle Steel carpel tunnel. As many of you are aware, for every daisy, there is a patch of milkweed. By and large, Locke is able to pull off pulp gold. While the majority of his work is quality, not every effort can, or will be top notch though. Though this novel seems stretched for ideas, it does have the signature Locke charms, though dangerously over the top with this installment. There is something to be said for someone that can still make run of the mill and crass ideas readable though. Locke's vision 'through the seedy underbelly of society' are always dripping with testosterone. So much in fact it's enough to make John Wayne call him a chauvinist if he'd been given a chance.
As for the characters, I found Mr. Pancake, or 'Buddy' completely and utterly unlikable, and was unable to empathize even with his soulless supposed love interest or wife. Locke really presses another indecent proposal type twist into print here as well. When I first noticed the device in another novel, I thought it clever, then I noticed other tendencies from the 90's that are still popping out the more I read his work.
The story and characters here are drab, simply unlikable and inaccessible. To bring up Danielle Steel again, Locke does have a similar, although much less prose-ful' and far more phallic zest, for the sex sauce.
Again, I am Locke fan as much as I can be as a reviewer, and avid aficionado of what Locke has done for this genre, even bending it to make his own sub form of it, and even at his worst, or below his par, he still retains wit and has a knack for those unsettling face to face kind of moments that make real folks squirm. Even in a low spot, Locke does retain what makes him the master of his niche.