Review: Not great but readable
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 20, 2011
This starts slow but after a while I got into the story and wanted to know what was going to happen to the characters.  I thought the writing was weak, almost juvenile at times, then read that it was a first draft translation so maybe that's why.The title was misleading to me, I thought it was going to be a mystery or thriller.  Yes, there's a bad guy, but he's not a serial killer or anything, more like a nasty con man, who does hire killers but to me that still didn't make it read like a mystery or thriller. And it's not about 3 religions, except that the book has Christian, Muslim and Jewish characters.It's more a family saga type book that starts during WWII in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam and ends in America in the 60's. The plot is a little slow but I really liked the characters.  There's some strong women, a conflicted German officer, young men who believe this new thing called "television" will catch on... There are some good plot elements-a Jewish family hiding from Nazi's in a basement, escape from Holland, some adventure avoiding the killer hired by the bad guy. If the pace was faster this would have been a really good read.As it is, it's okay, if you have lots of reading time so don't have to be too picky.  Certainly don't spend more than 99 cents on it. Hopefully future translations will improve this book.