Review: Three stars does not mean average!
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 20, 2013
This is the product of a gifted storyteller. The story itself is worthy of five stars until one reaches the last chapter and the Epilogue which do not fit at all. So for plot and character development, I rate the book a #4.  Then comes the problems with  what is either an attempt at stream of consciousness -- a skill that few but Faulkner have mastered--or a complete disregard or ignorance of sentence composition.  I presume it was intentional because it seems limited to segments relating to the principal character but it was distracting to keep asking oneself, 'Is this part of the last sentence, or something new?' I write in an entirely different genre, and nearly all of my weaker reviews come from copy-editing, spelling and formatting errors less egregious than what I see here. I give the book a two star rating on technical expertise, and rate it overall at a three. I disagree with the reviewer who said the book would have been outstanding if another author had written it. This is Henley's story to tell, and it is a reasonably good one, except for the inane end and the blatant attempt to tease us toward a potential sequel. My take is the book would have been a spy tale worthy of early Robert Ludlum if Mr.Henley had hired an editor and left the lack of traditional punctuation to the likes of Hemingway and Faulkner. I am finally getting around to taking this advice myself, and I hope that Henley take some heed of it. I hope there is another book coming, but one without flaws that interfere with Henley's talent.