Book Review
Title: Cari Mora
Author: Thomas Harris
Genre: Thriller
Rating: **
Review: This is my second book for the Bookoplathon, used for the lowest rating prompt at only 2.83 on Goodreads – how? This is the first stand alone Thomas Harris has published since his first novel and it has been over a decade since the release of his last book in the Hannibal Lecter series. I was really excited to read this as Harris is one of my favourite authors of all time and Hannibal is one of my favourite morally grey characters of all time. However, all I knew about Cari Mora was it centres around men trying to locate cartel gold in Miami and Cari Mora, a housekeeper is somehow drawn into it. This audiobook is also narrated by the author which was another thing I was really looking forward to. Cari Mora is a housekeeper for Pablo Escobar’s old home which is why people like Hans-Peter Schneider and many others have an interest in it as they are looking for the money that Pablo hid before his death. Cari isn’t your normal protagonist however, as she has seen active warzones from which she fled which is why she agreed to stay in the home. Hans-Peter Schneider, on the other hand, is immensely creepy, in fact, he creeps me out more than Hannibal Lecter does which is saying something as he runs brothels and has a liking for torture and killing young girls and he has his eye on Cari. Upon meeting as Hans-Peter has gotten the permit for the house, Cari decides she isn’t staying there overnight as she knows the kind of people Hans-Peter keeps around him but I have a feeling that Hans-Peter isn’t going to let her slip away from him too easily as he has taken a liking to her.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we soon learn that Hans-Peter and his crew aren’t the only ones looking for Pablo’s wealth and some of the other crew are already well installed in the house as gardeners and pool repair people but it isn’t long until one of them is discovered and they have to get out of there. Cari is an interesting character to watch here, she isn’t involved with the cartel trying to get around Hans-Peter’s men but she has no trouble handling a gun and getting the hell out of there without being noticed and as we know she was a doctor/nurse in an active warzone, we can presume this is where she picked up these skills. While she interacts with these men, we learn that she isn’t in or out of their scheme, but she wants them to win over Hans-Peter. We also learn that both sides know of the vast cavern under the house and both believe this is where Pablo hid his riches and it seems like a race to see who can get to it first. While Cari Mora has all the hallmarks of Harris’ classic style and creepy atmosphere, it does seem to be a majorly slow burn as we are a ¼ of the way through and nothing much has happened yet, so I am waiting for some action to kick in. Harris the master of the slow burn leading to dramatic action sequences so I am hopefully and yet the issue of the extremely low rating this has on Goodreads is worrying me and all the Hannibal Lecter books have fairly good ratings even Hannibal Rising which is the worst book in the series.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, we see Hans-Peter send Felix into the cavern to try and get a better look at what is inside and while he does manage to achieve this he spots some red, glowing eyes in the dark and races to get out of there. However, when his harness is pulled when it only contains the lower half of Felix and I believe that the man in Colombia who has been feeding both sides information of the gold knows what this thing is and how to get around it. Jesus obviously has the upper hand as he not only transported the gold there himself, but he is the only person alive who knows how to get around the “defences” guarding the wealth. Antonio who is with the other cartel also tries to get a look at the cavern using Cari as a getaway driver but he is caught and seemingly killed by Hans-Peter’s goons which now puts Cari in an awkward position, if she returns to the house she puts herself in harms way but to not return means that Hans-Peter is going to get in sooner or later. We also learn a lot about Cari’s backstory which isn’t only devastating but horrific as well but there are numerous real-life experiences of the things Cari went through but it also means she has some skills that Hans-Peter wouldn’t be expecting her to have which could make her very useful to either side giving herself some insurance. It seems that unlike the Hannibal series, which is both plot driven, and character driven, Cari Mora seems exclusively character driven as the plot is quite mundane apart from some tiny moments, so it focuses heavily on the characters, their history and their motivations.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Cari goes after and ends up killing two of Hans-Peter’s men in retaliation for killing Antonio, who she should have gone with or at least slept with while she had the chance. Afterwards, she gets a new gun from the cartel and tells them that they will never see her again, but it seems like she has revenge or at least a grudge on her mind when she leaves. We also get two other pieces of information that prove to be especially useful in trying to piece together what is going to happen next. Hans-Peter has found the vault which he believes contains the wealth of Pablo Escobar but Jesus in Colombia won’t tell him how to open it until he pays which is something that Hans-Peter doesn’t want to do and is taking the risk in removing the vault from the basement in order to work on it in private somewhere else. The second piece of information is causally linked to the first as Hans-Peter is having to leave the house because Antonio’s body has been found and identified which means it is only a matter of time before the police start knocking on his door. The police investigation is already underway led by Terry Robles who also have a mission of his own to find the people who sold a gun to a man who had a grudge against him which led to his wife being shot in the head. Although she survived, she will never be the same again and he wants to know who sold the gun, but the cartels are very carefully about implicating themselves or their allies in matter that the police are involved in.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, we are over halfway through and still nothing much has happen and while I am holding out hope that there will an explosion of action towards the end of the novel which Harris favours so much, every page is leaving me more doubtful as to whether that will be the case. In Colombia, Jesus has been playing several cartels against each other leading to his death and as he is the only person who can open the vault, I don’t know how this novel is going to conclude. Jesus’ death is just one of a few we are treated to throughout this section of the novel, but we see more of a power struggle between Hans-Peter and the other cartels for possession of the vault and what is inside. Hans-Peter has also planned to remove it to another location which the cartel has been getting hold of, but the pace is slow and plodding. In addition to this, our protagonist doesn’t seem to be doing much in terms of driving the plot forward, she just happens to find herself in the middle of situations that she has no desire to actually be in and has no desire to help tackle or resolve the issues presented in the novel.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, we learn that Hans-Peter all but abandoned the house after Antonio’s murder in order to avoid being caught which means the house is now in the hands of the cartel. As more and more people know about the vault, the cartel have an extremely limited amount of time to remove it or open it before the force of the law comes crashing down on them. The leader decides to recruit Cari as she has some special skills that will work well with the other members of the cartel in return for things that Cari needs, but this is a chess game with the players moving their pieces into position. The leader of the cartel has spoken with Hans-Peter who only wants a third of the gold and Cari and while he says he can’t do it, these are men of no morals and I am worried for Cari. However, when Marco ventures down into the basement to inspect the vault closer, he almost comes face to face with beast lurking down there which happens to be nothing supernatural as I first thought but a very large saltwater crocodile which explains the half eaten corpses rotting below but it does present them with a new challenge as the vault can’t be moved and has to be opened there, they only need to find the weak spot.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, we finally get some action but nowhere near what I was expecting of Thomas Harris, 13 years after his magnum opus. I don’t want to talk about the ending as it provides the only intense moments of the whole book, but I will say that Cari does come into her own as a strong and powerful character. While I was excited for Cari Mora because I love the Hannibal series, I wasn’t going into it expecting much as it has a different setting, characters and genre but I was still disappointed. I will confess that I did read some reviews before going into, but these didn’t impact me as while many were negative there were plenty of people that loved Cari Mora. For me, if you go into it wanting an intense character study and the dissection of the characters, their motivations and the setting then I have no doubt you will love Cari Mora, but if you are going into it looking for the heart-racing, blood-pumping thrills and chills of the Hannibal series you will be sorely disappointed. In my opinion, Thomas Harris should return to the Hannibal world as there is still so much to explored there that could be made into some amazing new books in that world.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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