Van Der Steen says on the back cover of his book that his “main influences include the old guys like Hammett and Chandler, as well as wit slingers like Harlan Coben and Robert B. Parker.”  Sadly, his efforts in White Knight Syndrome do not reflect the best attributes of these influences.

The idea of a “security specialist” who is the son of a Mafia don, trying to escape from his past ties and history, is an interesting one.  But the rest of the story doesn’t do much to advance the idea.

The first subplot in the book is transparent, although the second one has an interesting twist or two.  (Sorry, but I don’t like to include spoilers!)  And the ending of the story actually had a nice, positive twist.  But slogging through the first three-fourths of the book took away much of the pleasure of that denouement.

Perhaps I’m a stickler, but there were a lot of non-story problems that distracted me from the book.  For example, most of the chapters are no more than three pages.  I understand the need for the occasional short chapter, but having so many made this a very choppy book.

With full admission that I could not speak or write a word of intelligible Dutch, it sometimes becomes obvious that English is not Van Der Steen’s primary language because of errors in usage.  (“thrash can” for “trash can” and “bottle of whine” for “bottle of wine”, for example, and “You come at his little cabin a lot?” instead of “You come to his little cabin a lot?”  And, no, the last two examples were not supposed to be double entendrès.)  And along with the errors in usage, there were many, many typos and mis-punctuations.  Editing seems to have gone by the board.

As I said, the primary story idea is intriguing, but when borrowing from authors like Hammett, Chandler and Parker, one shouldn’t try to imitate them but to emulate them.  There’s a definite difference.

Noah Milano, the protagonist of the story, is tasked with escorting the daughter of a wealthy widower to her prom.  While at the prom, Noah strikes up the beginnings of a romance with one of the teachers acting as a chaperone at the dance.  But the daughter of the wealthy widower predictably disappears.  The rest of the book is concerned with resolving the mystery surrounding the disappearance and subsequent events.

Noah Milano is the author’s attempt at a wise-cracking, smart-ass private security specialist cum private detective.  There’s a bit too much of the ass, and way too little of the wise and smart.  He has a tendency to use a highly-contrived simile in almost every other sentence or description (the story is written in the first person).  For example:

“It took her only a minute to get us our coffee.  It was hotter than a five dollar pistol and stronger than concrete.”

And further down the page, “Laurie seemed to like the pancakes a lot better than the coffee.  She started to devour it like a 15-year old boy devours Playboy Magazine.”

Milano has a tendency to be a “rescuer” (thus the White Knight comparison) and uses his attempts at saving others as a way of seeking redemption, according to his platonic girlfriend, who happens to be an LA County Medical Examiner.  Funny how these ex-bad-guys always happen to hook up with someone who has the connections to get them the information needed to hang the real baddies. 

It’s overdone and hackneyed, and sounds like a bad movie script.  Chandler wrote Chandler.  Hammett wrote Hammett.  Van Der Steen should find his own voice, and let it come naturally, instead of trying for a knockoff.  If he does, I’m predicting he’ll write some really good stories.  If not, well…