Book Review: The Faithful Spy

The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson is a nice quick read for those who like spy novels.

What I especially enjoyed was the protagonist's time in Afghanistan and Berenson's ability to create a very high tension level. I found the character's mental state transitioning back from Afghan life to U.S. life also very well done.

The book had a well-developed bad guy with a good plan that kept the reader guessing until the end.

The secondary characters were fine, but didn't really move me one way or the other.

My main criticism is that when the protagonist was in the U.S., why wouldn't he just pick up the phone and call for help or call in a tip.

That being said, it is a decent read.

Book Review: Blood Oath

Three short sentences on the front cover prompted me to pick up Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth: The Ultimate Secret. The Ultimate Agent. The President’s Vampire. I knew I’d buy the book after I read the first page. It didn't hurt that I have an interest in the Balkans. But aside from that, I really liked how chapter one used a secondary character’s reaction to the vampire to introduce him.

Farnsworth used many different perspectives to tell the story and I liked how he let the reader know the antagonists and significant secondary characters’ goals, fears, and wants.

Most of the action scenes were done well. However, there were some grisly parts.

My primary critique is that the human protagonist was introduced as a complainer which tainted my view of him through the rest of the novel.

Blood Oath is a good, imaginative book.

Book Review: Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons was good escapist fiction. Black-hearted villains, a damsel in distress, a reluctant hero, a mystery, and a smattering of red-herrings. It wasn't a high literary novel in terms of the writing, but Dan Brown knows how to end a chapter, keep a book moving, and develop some good characters.

As with The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown found a historical myth and launched it into a conspiracy story involving the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike in the Da Vinci Code where the novel's historical premise centered on debunking one of the basic tenets of faith for Catholics, hence their protest of the movie, Angels and Demons' historical premise was based on the age-old battle between science and religion.

So far, my favorite Dan Brown book is The Da Vinci Code.

Book Review: Catching Fire

Rarely does a sequel capture the energy and excitement of the first novel. Everything in a first novel is new and fresh and sometimes authors seem to struggle to maintain the same intensity and freshness to the reader.

Collins did not seem to have any of those problems here. Like her last novel, just when you think you know what's going to happen, she throws you a curve ball, but a curve ball that makes sense. For me, that's the gem of this series. I've read novels where the author will say something and I'll be left wondering where did that come from, or how did we get to this point and never figure it out.

Whereas the first novel, The Hunger Games, took three pages for me to get into it (and then I couldn't set it down after that), Catching Fire, had me from the get go. Although, unlike the first novel, somewhere in the middle of Catching Fire, it did slow down and I was able to set the book down and go to bed at a decent hour two nights in a row. Then the book took off again, and I was up into the wee hours of the third night finishing it off.

An excellent sequel to The Hunger Games.

Book Review: The Bourne Legacy

I loved the Bourne movies. In looking for a quick read, I picked up The Bourne Legacy by Erin Van Lustbader. It was a quick read and the opening chapter in Chechnya was really well written. However, there was quite a disconnect from who Bourne was in this book and the three movies. I never quite got used to it.

I don't know if the three books the movies were based on were quite as different as this book was from the character in the movies, if so then I'm comparing apples to oranges. But if not, There were a couple of story developments that put me off. First, Bourne was always getting his butt kicked. He never lost a fight in the movies. Second, I was surprised that there was such an emphasis in the last two movies of him not killing people whereas it wasn't even mentioned in this book. I also didn't buy Bourne and Khan's history. It seemed to come out of the blue (again based on the movies). Their flashbacks really put me off.

If you've only seen the Bourne movies, I would not recommend this novel.