Review: Interesting Idea Falls Flat
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 14, 2013
This one is proving a bit difficult for me to review. The book starts out with a very meaty hook, capturing my attention right out of the gate. The pacing overall wasn't too bad, with the action nicely spaced throughout.Characters come and go with surprising frequency, leaving me several times uncertain or unable to remember if this was a particular characters first appearance or not. As a side note, there isn't even a token main female character anywhere in the entire book. In fact, there is only ONE place in the entire novel where a girl shows up at all, and she features for all of about three pages.Mark travels around the globe over the course of the book, with each 'henching' section reading like a short novella. At first it doesn't seem like there is an overall plot arc, but each part melds together into a whole at the end.Each of Mark's henching jobs is ruined by the appearance of one of two super-spies. Jack Tempest - British spy extra-ordinary James Bond clone or Rip Dunbar - a foul mouthed American agent (I don't read/watch spy movies so I'm not sure who he might be modeled after).Mark's interactions with the two spies are the highlights of the book. I really wanted to see more of these. Jack Tempest in particular.This book I think suffers the most for lack of a villain. Mark's character is a bit... directionless. He floats around where life takes him, and he isn't struggling towards any kind of goal until the end. And even that goal was short term. I would have liked to see more play and interaction between Mark, Tempest, and Rip.I honestly think this novel would have worked better as a serial, with each henching job a section - with the climax at the end being the appearance of the rival spy.The reveal at the end wasn't enough to seal the deal, and my attention wandered near the end, as I wondered if the book was actually going anywhere. It wasn't until the very end that you discover what everything was leading up to.