Norman Kross is a career interrogator who has worked covertly in some of the most dangerous places in the world. He returns to his LA home, contemplating retirement and coming to terms with his past. He may be a master at unlocking others’ secrets, but he is blind to the truth of his relationship with his wife, sons, father, and friends. Floundering as a teacher, Norman agrees to take on one last assignment, to interrogate a character actor who may be responsible for the death of a director’s daughter. The secrets he uncovers are far more terrifying than any battlefield, any windowless room, any passage in the notebook he feverishly writes in to make sense of what men are capable of behind their masks.
Born in Alaska and raised in Michigan, Martin Ott joined the Army as a Russian linguist and interrogator before attending the University of Michigan. He began writing fiction and poetry in his undergraduate years.
He has traveled through the United States and internationally, and these influences can be seen in his poetry travelogue, Poets' Guide to America from Brooklyn Arts Press, cowritten with John F. Buckley. He moved to Los Angeles in 1995, and often writes about his adopted city.
Lesson's I learned from this book. One: Do not ever start a relationship with an interrogator. You will always be one of his subjects. Two do not ever date an actor who wants to role play in different parts of your relation. Three do not play golf in the middle of the night on an unlit course.
The main character Norman Kross is a very broody, depressive person. He obviously has some serious issues and there are many points in the book where I felt like slapping him and telling him this was the time to do something. He has no proper reaction towards any person in his surrounding. He does understand and catches the signals given by people but does not react to them and feels bad about it after. But this goes on and on and on and he does not seem to learn from it. As a female this mad me cringe over and over again.
The other character George Stark, the actor, is a real creep. He is scary and gave me the same feeling as Pennywise gave me years ago. You never know what he is up to and he can be everywhere. I really loved that aspect of the book.
The development in the story between Kross and Stark is solid but for 200 pages there are to many things happening. I did not know the places of all the extra characters mixing Lawrence and Owen up all the time. There was a lot of family drama going on which seemed to be important in the one part of the chapter and was waved away a bit on other parts. There where the diary parts in chapters which I could not always place in the story. I like stories where parts of a diary are written out if they make sense for the chapter before or after it but I did not always experience a connection between them though they did give some insight in Norman's head.
Ow and that actor... is a creep
The Interrogator's Notebook
Author: Martin Ott
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Asin: B00BEA5MTE
Pages: 202
Format: eBook
Story Merchant Books: eBook | Paperback
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