The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis

 The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis


A different version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:

-              https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEVa4_CsRStSBBDo4uJWT8BSWtTTn0N1E  and   http://realini.blogspot.ro/


This book is both good and challenging.
At least this is my angle.

I could not take it all the way.
Not without just flipping pages  after reaching the second part.

In a really long volume, the reader meets characters from all over the over and travels with them to

Haiti, Turkey, Miami, to meet Russians, Croatians, Pakistanis and other nationalities.
Everyone is represented, except for my own nationality...

-          And why is that??

It is a story is difficult to follow from where I stand.
We start in Haiti and I got interested in Tom Harrington and the woman that was first called Jackie Scott and pretended to be a photographer.
She is the one who lost her soul and is interested in voodoo.

Or so she claims, for throughout the narrative there will be so many changes:

Of identities, motives, plots, agencies involved and even apparent deaths.

Jackie Scott appeares to have been killed and there is an unofficial investigation, lead by a detective who wants help from Tom Harrington.
When in Haiti, he was involved with Jackie, albeit in a strange manner.

Many aspects have been too outre in this tale and this is part of the reason why I just lost the initial enthusiasm and interest.

-          Why are the agencies involved in Haiti?
-          Ok, they say that it is a lawless land and they can run some of their operations through there: drugs, collaborators and more, but still it appears somewhat far fetched and anyway difficult to follow.

When I reached book two, I was wondering if I made a mistake and this is actually a short story book and we are now moving to

-          Something Completely Different, Monty Python.

-          The action is now taking place in the Balkans...and what does this place and story have to do with Haiti, Jackie and the rest?

There are more gruesome acts in this episode, with the beheading of the father of Stjepan, a child who last becomes an American who has his name changed to Steven Chambers and becomes the father of Jackie.

-          Oh, but wait!
-          Jackie is not the real name of the woman who was/is not a journalist...
-          Her real name is Dorothy Chambers.

I found the next book more interesting, even if by now I am

-          Dazed and Confused

In her teens, Dorothy is in Istanbul, where we have the Turks and Russians involved in her life that is full of games and experiments played and organized by her outlandish father.
From early testing and already improper games in Kenya, the parent moves to an utter abuse and uses his daughter to get revenge on the man who killed his father.

He watches as his own daughter is raped and penetrated in the anus, only to come out from behind the glass and shoot the man's penis after the girl is violated and terrorized.

How is that for a villain, lunatic and psychopath?

And this book has so much outrage, abuse, killings, even a fake murder or maybe two?

Is this this a case of

-          Too much of a good thing?

I mean, yes it is thrilling to read about so much going on, in all corners of the world and all the different agencies involved, but then I felt it was getting overwhelming


And really, really long.

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