Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsGood story, overall, but sloppy at times. Reads like a "Perfect Assassin" copy.
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2010
This book has gotten rave reviews, but I'm afraid I'm being overly generous with three stars. It doesn't help that I read Ward Larsen's "The Perfect Assassin" immediately prior to this novel. The protagonists in this novel and "Perfect Assassin" are not dissimilar, but that's to be expected in this genre. I like these types of characters. Our protagonist, Jordan, has a tag-along female companion (like Perfect Assassin), but she's such a poorly developed character, written as though she were a requirement more than a part of the story. Her name is Christine (same name as the female character in Perfect Assassin by the way...odd) and at one point they're on a boat called "Winsome II" (the name of Christine's boat in Perfect Assassin was Winsome!) Ok, so perhaps Mr. Stephens was a fan of Mr. Larsen's book, but maybe a little subtlety is in order here.
There were a few other things that irked me about the story. Christine apparently traded letters with another character in the book during the Vietnam war. However, this book takes place in the present day, and Christine is described as being "in her thirties." So, unless she had a Vietnam War pen pal prior to being born, or when she was an infant, this isn't possible. Another character is described as making a killing off of "dotcom startups" but "by the time the nineties rolled around" had lost everything. So, somehow this guy managed to get rich off dotcoms in the eighties before dotcoms existed.
To top everything off, there was a hair too much political sniping for my taste. Normally, I couldn't care less, but after several "liberal medias", "Ayn Rands", "bleeding hearts", "fox newses", with some France bashing sprinkled on top, I found myself rolling my eyes at my book and saying, "OKAAAAY, we get it!"
So, after all that, the story was actually pretty good. The action was great, really great sometimes. There were some plot twists that kept you guessing, and character motives you questioned throughout the story, which was fun. I'd recommend it to fans of this genre. Just keep in mind, some things slipped past the editors on this one it seems. Oh, and don't read "Perfect Assassin" immediately before or after this one. ;)