What the hell is a Smoke Jumper? (The Smoke Jumper - Nicholas Evans)

Member Name: JJJJ

Product:	The Smoke Jumper - Nicholas Evans
Date:	14/10/09 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written characters, and thoughtfully constructed plot

Disadvantages: N/A

Firstly, thanks to pania22 (angela) who recommended this book to me :)

Nicolas Evans is a writer whose work I hadn't read until recently - I had however, heard of his most popular book 'The Horse Whisperer' - but only because of the film adaptation. As 'horse whispering' doesn't really interest me (or at least I don't think it does) I started out by reading his wolf-based second book 'The Loop', which I generally enjoyed.

This particular review focuses on Evans' third offering 'The Smoke Jumper', which was released in 2001, and can currently be purchased from Amazon for £5.49.

'So what is a 'smoke jumper'?' I hear you ask - I know it sounds like the result of a cardigan being left a little too close to some faulty Christmas lights, but it isn't. A smoke jumper is a firefighter who parachutes into a fairly inaccessible area in order to control the outbreak of flames and stop the blaze spreading.

The story mainly focuses on two good friends - Ed Tully (an aspiring composer), and Connor Ford (a photographer), both of who are smoke jumpers. Upon meeting a beautiful woman named Julia as the result of a dispute over a parking space, Ed can't believe his luck - however, Julia doesn't realise that spending the summer counselling troubled youths in Montana will change her life forever...

The plot of the Smoke Jumper can't be pigeonholed into one specific area of fiction, as there are elements of many different genres cropping up throughout the story - action, romance, thriller - there really is something for everyone. Evans' writing style is easy-reading and descriptive, and some of the book's settings - from the dusty Montana landscapes, to war-torn Africa (where Connor later works as a photojournalist), are beautifully envisaged, allowing the reader to imagine themselves actually in the midst of the action.

Although Evan's previous work 'The Loop' was a decent read, I found the Smoke Jumper to be much more enjoyable, and I certainly became further immersed into the story than I did with his previous book. The characters are fully fleshed out and (most importantly) likeable, which always makes getting involved in the plot a lot easier - I actually had trouble putting this one down, and it was frequently the case of 'just one more chapter'.

Overall, The Smoke Jumper is a highly entertaining book which really engages the reader. The characters are beautifully written, and the general level of research that Evans must have had to undertake is staggering - he packs a thorough knowledge of so many diverse topics into one novel - Highly recommended as a great book.

Summary: Unexpectedly Gripping Novel