Review: Puccini is definitely not a team player
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 24, 2013
This is an exceptionally long book with a convoluted storyline about which I vacillated between liking and finding tedious and/or dated. I got really tired of the racial and religious slurs and excessive use of the fword. (My iPad search function found 177 uses.)I think the author is a more than decent narrator but found the long-winded historical  perspective a bit much especially when punctuated with so much violence and general unpleasantness. This is one of those books that might elicit "couldn't put it down" but only from the fear of getting the characters too mixed up if I left it too long.My biggest complaint was in regard to the horrendous number of typos, inconsistencies of punctuation and possessives and editing errors which in and of themselves would keep me from picking up another of Mr. Bailitis' books. I'm referring to such things as the following examples:flack for flak (two wrong uses to one right)Used plural genii for genie singularI didn't received any messageNick-knacksDidn't dry wretch (retch)Whose running this townWas bearing his teethShould be breeching not breaching mechanismOn queue (for cue) Bobby pressed the car hornChauffer for chauffeurBa mitzvah for barDue the pattern it appearedHonkey-dory for hunky-doryKnows were meeting (we're)If your rightDon't waste your breatheOverestimating you're loyaltiesHoping out of the carShould be mon ami for male friends not the feminine amieRussian guards who's names we haveThe illusive communist (elusive)Man who's only love was his sonTie up his aid (aide)Periodic misspellings of names like Chiang Kai-shek and  NietzscheIf these errors don't bother you, all may be well. The characters were well-drawn although some of the actions were unfathomable as relationships were put to test after test, and there was an unbecoming sappiness regarding the much ballyhooed blue-eyed Chinese. I'd give it a 2.5 overall simply because I liked the mix of fact and fiction and cared enough to finish it.