Review: secret, super-secret, ultra-secret, or specially designed and pre-ordered for a spy
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 09 5, 2013
I received this book from the independent writer's review initiative.The book's content has been somewhat fleshed out in other reviews so I won't delve into too much of that as to not give away any more spoilers but will just give my impressions of the novel.The book is a modern day spy novel in which the characters live in a world where everything is either secret, super-secret, ultra-secret, or specially designed and pre-ordered for a spy and the characters jet all over the globe in order to catch terrorists.  Cool!Some things are done very well and some others were not to my liking and these are sometimes right next to each other which makes the difference all the more evident.  For example the author's description of the events surrounding one agent's escape from Egypt during the Tahir Square uprising was exciting and compelling yet immediately after that the book falls into a section which feels very tired in the way that it merely explains what happens (instead of showing).  Another reviewer had commented that the writing style feels journalistic and this is exactly what I saw.  It sometimes felt like I was reading a newspaper recounting of events.  If the author could have stuck with the former style for the entire book then I think this could have easily been a 5 star rating from me.Perhaps the author's strongest suite lies in the way he can describe locations, specific mannerisms, items, cars and places that would be specific to those locations.  This felt very real and very authentic to me.  I do not know if the author has been to all these different places as there are so many but if not he has done his research well.Perhaps his weakest suite, to me, is in his dialog.  Many conversations throughout the book felt contrived or jumpy, not fully fleshed out or inauthentic.  Maybe I don't know how spys speak but many of the conversations just didn't feel `right' to me.There are small errors, such as spelling or grammatical that could use a good scrubbing (even stuff like a comma in the middle of a word -clearly a mistyping or "massage" being spelled "message", etc., etc., etc.).  Also other mix ups are present such as in chapter 12 where the author describe something Sarah and Aden are doing but calls them Aden and Zak which make things very confusing.  Normally I overlook spelling and grammatical errors with independent authors because they are on their own and don't have an army of editors helping them but this book had enough that it was really starting to become a distraction.  It almost felt like it was a first draft.On a final note, this book is not for children as it has some depictions of sexual acts that are a bit graphic (unnecessarily in my opinion) and it is a spy novel so obviously there is some violence also.