Review: 3 1/4 Stars
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 24, 2009
Plot Storyline: 5 StarsThis novel accomplished what it set out to do, bring the reader an action novel. You won't find philisophical gems of wisdom in this book and, unless you are a bit twisted already, reading this book won't be a life changing experience for you.The plot is the age-old 'revenge for the death of my daddy' story. However, Mr. Goldberg does bring a little extra to the table by the end. He even manages to set the reader up for the sequel in a very believable manner.I loved the old guy who jumped out of the refrigerator covered in chocolate body spray to get his wife in the mood. There's not a lot of humor in this book, but what little there is will make you laugh.Character Development:  4 StarsEven though it was just an action novel, I still would have liked more insight into Brett's character. When he starting hearing a 'little voice' in his head urging him on, I was a bit turned off. I guess what I was looking for was a little glimpse into his younger days that might explain a capacity for the violence he later perpetrated.Also, I would have liked more knowledge regarding how Brett knew how to fight so well. A woman even asked him how he kept in shape, and all he did was avoid the question with a joke.The other characters seemed to have their fair share of explanation and motivation. The 'bad guys' were pretty well done, too.<strong>Writing Style: 3.5</strong>The writing was good through most of the novel. I did have a bit of an issue with the viewpoint changes. It's as though the author wanted to write in omniscient viewpoint, but only remembered that every now and then. A part of the story would be told from one person's viewpoint, then switch to another, from as little as one sentence to as much as the rest of the scene.Another issue was the switching to thoughts of a character using "I", but with nothing denoting it, such as quotes.  There were some awkward sentences here and there that caused me to have to read them more than once.The author did a very good job with dialogue. Most of his dialogue was very realistic, with one small exception that was rather humorous when I tried to play the scene out in my head.  Our intrepid hero is holding a guy's head over a spike of glass in a broken window. He is trying to make the guy talk, so he tells him, "Talk or I'll impale you right now."  Impale?  Who the heck uses that word, especially when not holding a sword?  This was an anomaly, though, as the other dialoque was very realistic.Editing/Formatting: 1 StarThe errors in this book overrode a lot of the enjoyment. There was at least one error every other page. Many times, there were multiple errors in one sentence.  Everything from missing punctuation, missing words, wrong words, to extraneous punctuation was represented here.  I was appalled at the condition of this book.The Kindle formatting was okay with one exception. There were line breaks in odd places.Rating: R for Language, Extreme Violence, Explicit Sexual Scenes, including Rape----------------I would like to add that the author has stated that he published the wrong version. Since my review, he has published the corrected version. He suggests that if you purchased it prior to my review date, return it to Amazon and buy it again to get the new version. Otherwise, wait a day or so to ensure that you receive the corrected version.