Review: Too Much Back-Story; Diffuse Beginning Builds to Taut Action Sequence
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 6, 2012
K. D. George has a lot of potential. Once the book arrives at the action sequence of highly-trained mercenaries on a rescue mission into the compound of a corrupt African warlord, Q spells "action movie" as another reviewer notes.This part of the novel is gripping; there are some moments fraught with uncertainty and clever problem-solving. One can't help rooting for the good guys. All of that is as it should be.The problem for me was slogging through the first half or more of the book to get there. I felt as if I was reading back-stories that were best left in the author's notes. I really didn't need to know chapters full of details about the shipwreck that led to one couple being stranded in the warlord's clutches; it seemed as if that should have been part of an entirely different book.The first part of the book tacks between the stories of different characters without sufficient foreshadow of how the threads will be woven together in a single plot. Any adept reader would know that the threads will be brought together; but creating confusion in the reader's mind should not be confused with creating suspense.The story might well have proceeded without the back-story of one of the couples; they are nice enough but their relatively minor roles might well have been assigned to other characters to eliminate such as large cast of characters. The details of training the men for the mission also seemed to go on a bit long.As a female reader, I was not attracted to the pages of gratuitous and graphic sex, and just skipped them.In summary, if you like action thrillers of the rescue-mission type, this could be a good read for you.