Thirst by Thierry Sagnier

A fortune in drugs is missing.Finding them starts with finding her.

Colin isn’t a cop. Joe is, but isn’t up for this. Mamadou was an excellent police officer back in Senegal, but in Washington DC he drives a limo. Josie’s just a girl—a recovering crack addict fed up with her parents and with Herbie, her boyfriend. She’s planning on giving him a piece of her mind. Trouble is, Herbie stole a shipment of drugs, and now he’s dead. And let’s not forget Mollie Catfish…

Now the Zulu wants his drugs, Mamadou wants revenge, Joe just wants to do his job for once, and Colin wants to save his girlfriend’s daughter. All Josie wants is to remember what Herbie might have told her, what the Zulu insists she knows. If she doesn’t—she’s dead too.

Mollie? She wants it all.

Behind the polished marble of Washington DC, lies dark alleys where everyone thirsts for something. 

I don't usually read other reviews about a book before reviewing it, but on the rare occasion I find myself compelled to.  In most cases, it's because I want to see if others felt the same way that I did about a book, or perhaps they have a perspective that I may have missed.  This is one of those times where I went to check the other reviews before composing mine in the hopes that someone saw something I didn't.  As it turns out, most others who have reviewed this book absolutely adored it.  As I read their reviews, I couldn't help but wonder how they could have such a good opinion if they had read the same book I did.  However, regardless of what the others say, it doesn't change my personal feelings towards this book.

The basic synopsis of the book is that someone stole money from the Zulu and he wants it back.  In itself, this could be made into a decent story.  They've made amazing novels on much less of a plot.  However, the story isn't fleshed out enough that it really matters.  At the end, what you take away is exactly the first sentence of this paragraph.  There isn't an exciting twist or adventurous ride.  He wants his money and will stop at nothing to get it.  We see him so little in the book that I don't really care what he wants, though.

We're given a huge cast of characters, none of which we see for more than a blink at a time.  This makes it nearly impossible to keep them straight, let alone care about them.  Only one character had any depth and that was because we were able to find out about this character from other sources besides his brief dialogue.  Most of the time I found myself wishing that I had a pen and paper handy in order to draw a 'family tree' of sorts just so that I could keep the characters straight.  There are random strings attaching characters, but it's not enough that you get a cohesive picture of what's going on.  As for insight into the characters, we have a few actions but mostly we have to figure them out based upon dialogue.  Now, since there are too many characters to keep straight, I definitely couldn't match the dialogue to the person and keep it straight. 

Given that this is the third publication of this story (given my information, which may be incorrect), you'd think that they'd finally get the storytelling right.  I don't know what changes were made from previous versions, but there is still work to do here.  Imagine having a cast of a dozen characters who are all part of a happening.  Each one has a story as well as a personality and a back story.  Getting to see that is part of what makes the story great.  The happening is insignificant.  Sure, we have some crime and drugs thrown in but that's pretty basic stuff.  That's not special in the writing industry these days.  So each person's story is actually what the meat of this book should be.  However, we have all of these people and only see snippets of their side of the happening.  It's enough to slowly piece together what's going on, but seriously not enough to care.

My last complaint is that the basic rule of writing has been broken here.  Write what you know.  Rule number one.  There's no passion and not nearly enough detail and substance for this to be a heartfelt topic for the author.  The bad part is, it shows.  In some areas I feel like the writer is actually connected but most of the time it feels like a cat trying to write from a frog's perspective.  The cat can see what's going on, but can't experience it the same way.  That means the cat can't describe it the same way, let alone get others to actually feel anything towards it.

This book was a severe waste of time for me.  However, make sure you take the time to go read the other reviews.  Everyone else seems to have an opposing opinion to mine and you may find this is something you'd be interested in.  My two cents worth:  Save your money for the next rewrite instead of this one.

*I received a copy of this book for review purposes only.  All opinions are my own. Shawn