Review: Gripping and Brilliant
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 29, 2013
Trade is something special. From the moment you open this book you are thrust into the world it encapsulates:a dark world of intrigue, action, terrorism, spies, and manipulation. A world without trust. A world that only the brilliantly real characters portrayed in this book would have the wit, the guts, the principles or the sheer audacity to survive in. From the outset, you find yourself immersed in the action. The short terse phrases used throughout are very effective in instantly building and long maintaining a sense of danger and excitement; all the way through the book you feel you are balanced on a precipice in the dark, not knowing whether the next step you take will send you plunging over the edge. It is a marvel how well the suspense is maintained, right to the end.The best thing about Trade though, is the characters it introduces you to. And these are no polite 'how do you do?' introductions. At the start of the book it is easy to feel a little lost as the characters are introduced thick and fast. Each storms onto the scene in the midst of some hard-hitting action or sharp dialogue. Stick with it, as each of the characters is developed in the following chapters and they are fantastic. Each character is so vividly portrayed that you feel like you know them. They all have such unique and brilliantly depicted personalities that it would be easy to know who was talking and acting, just from knowing their speech or actions. They are far from perfect and this adds to their believability and makes it easy to relate to them - even though they generally occupy positions that an ordinary person could have no dealings with.Another review gave this book one star due to some grammatical and syntactical errors. These are, however, not enough to really take anything away from the book, in my opinion. If you an absolute stickler for grammar, you might find it a little irritating, but it is worth turning off your 'inner editor' and reading past the mistakes. I have given this book five stars despite any errors, because the plot and the characters more than make up for slightly sloppy editing. If you let a few misplaced commas put you off, you'll be missing out on a real gem of a book. My advice, focus on the forest - not the trees. This is a brilliant, exciting, vividly imaginative and yet grippingly realistic tour-de-force of a book. It is intelligently written, thoroughly researched and perfectly put together - layering intrigue upon intrigue and directing you at a headlong run through a maze of twists and turns, until the point and the choice of title at once become clear. At this price, what do you have to lose? Trade is well worth the investment.