Reviews for Bequest

The average rating for Bequest based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-09-21 00:00:00 Jist Benn Dire visions of environmental mayhem! Dr George Moss, a faculty member at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, explains his affliction to his young second wife, Joan, "There is a thing that has run in my family for generations. Folks around here call it `The Sight' - my father had it, my grandfather had it and his father before him ..."! George sees visions that he can't always explain - past, present and future. When he and Joan return to Lincoln, New York, for his father's funeral, the body is barely cold and in the grave as a behemoth corporation, New World Developments, and its subsidiary, Fairchild Environmental, a waste management giant, make an offer for his father's farm that is obscenely beyond any reasonable market valuation for the property. When The Sight gives him a gruesome vision of his father's death as a murder at the hands of two unidentified intruders in suits, George begins to suspect that there is dire work afoot in the town of Lincoln. He and Joan and their friends around them are in grave danger as Fairchild will stop at nothing to complete their dire plans for the environmental rape of the countryside around Lincoln. As thrillers go, the plot, while pleasantly entertaining, is relatively thin and overwrought and never really reaches the level of compelling. Thomas obviously harbours deep-seated feelings about the environment and its treatment at the hands of its corporate citizens but clearly using his novel Bequest as a platform to air these feelings so vehemently may rub some more complacent, placid readers a little raw. To Thomas' credit, my best bet is that he probably doesn't care. That said, Thomas' extraordinary literary skill as a writer is apparent even in this, his debut novel. He has crafted an astonishing array of astute observations on life, sex, growth, politics, the environment, friends, relatives, love, ethics, morality and happiness - some witty, some pithy, some startlingly deep, some hilarious, some moving and all spot on point! The skill with which he crafts these sentences will undoubtedly move some more veteran writers to salivate. Thomas is outspoken in his criticism of current US international policies and is obviously "dismayed at the myopia of an America that was going to presumptuously save the world from its own evolution by righteously exporting its values while the marine choir hummed. It was going to spread freedom by depriving other countries of the freedom to find their own way." At the same time, Thomas does not hesitate to poke fun at his own countrymen, "These Canadians around him were an odd bunch, hard to define in their moderation. They were like Australians without the sense of adventure, Americans without the ammo and nationalism or Brits without their aristocracy and bad dental plans." Bequest was an enjoyable read with a saucy, distinct Canadian flavour! I'll look forward to Thomas flexing his creative muscles as a more accomplished author in his next novel. If he can put a somewhat more polished plot together with those obvious literary skills, it'll be a dandy well worth the wait! Paul Weiss

Review # 2 was written on 2014-03-30 00:00:00 Jeffrey Miller I met Ian Thomas last summer at a Summer Solstice concert at a winery in the Niagara area. He is a well known singer/songwriter and is trying his hand at writing novels. I enjoyed the book, it kept my interest all the way through. It is about a man, a university professor, who has "the sight." He uses this gift, also seen as a curse, to solve the mystery of his father's untimely death, which involved a large firm that was buying up property for dump sites of chemical waste, under the guise of doing good things for small farming communities. It felt like the author used far too many cliches, mostly in the first half of the book. And the fact that "the sight" gave all the clues for the mystery to be solved, seemed a bit too convenient for me. But, despite these complaints, I really did enjoy the story and all the elements of seeing a big nasty firm get cut off at the knees!