Voodoo Lounge: A Novel by Christian Bauman

This book came recommended by a friend whose literary opinion I can usually trust.  Thanks, 3 Desk Mike.  You didn’t let me down. 

Voodoo Lounge refers to some part of an Army Waterborne ferry-like LSV-1.  It may have been the pilot house or the foredeck, I was never actually sure.  The novel actually revolves around a female buck Sergeant aboard the Voodoo Lounge craft during its participation in the 1994 invasion of Haiti. 

The novel ties together story the female Sergeant in question (FSIQ) and her former lover and shipmate, a strung out drug addict who now serves as a ship’s engineer on a floating death trap of a ship.  The fact that both ships appear in the same Haitian harbor during the invasion is thankfully not a coincidence, but is irritatingly unlikely none-the-less.

Other than little annoyance in the story line, everything holds together rather well.

The dialog is a little jumpy, though.  I appreciate the fact that the dialog holds true to genuine soldierly banter, but it just feels a bit stilted.  And, I gotta say, things got a little preachy there toward the end.  A good read, but have a seat on your high horse to get through it.

Bauman comes across somewhere between an over thought Nelson DeMille than an upscale Elmore Leonard.