I liked this story. I was a little put off by the way the author put the dialogue together, when a character would be having discussion that was not at all realistic to the situation. It was the way the author presented background information – he had the character’s tell it as part of their dialogue. This is fine, except with the discussion isn’t at all realistic to the situation.
A bit of a mystery, a bit of an adventure story, and a bit of intrigue, wrapped around pretty good character development. That’s how I’d describe this book. I’d recommend it to folks who like political intrigue stories, to folks who enjoy good character development, and to folks who enjoy rooting for the underdog.
Before reading this, I saw a couple reviews from folks who seemed to think this story had a political agenda, and that seemed to reduce the value of the writing and the story to them. It seemed to me that the author presented a scenario, and presented background information on the scenario that gave many sides to the issue. If you like your politics and your dilemmas served up from just a single pre-judged perspective, without the benefit of seeing things from the other guy’s perspective, then I suppose this book would bother you. It does present the perspective of folks who we rarely get to hear from. Personally, I don’t like having my opinions and perspectives force-fed to me – I like heading many sides to a story so I can decide for myself. I liked that this book did that.
Having said that, for those who (like me) enjoyed the book, it appears from the author’s website that he decided to turn this idea into a series. I’ll read another one for sure, in hopes that the little annoying dialogue thing I mentioned earlier improves.
