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I had the feeling when I finished the book that it could have been good ---- but it needed more rewites, more cohesion and a clearer vision. There never was any foundation established for many of the actions and so the story became unbelieveable. After the first rush of interest though the story began to get bogged down in its own convoluted plot. By the end of the book I hardly cared because it all made no sense. The book starts well. The opening scenes were complelling. The characters, too, were never well developed.
I couldn't even get through half the book before I didn't care about anyone in it. This is my first read by Reich, and probably won't buy another.
If you extracted all the unnecessary, superfluous, redundant, clichéd, unoriginal, worn-out, passé, overworked, stereotypical, timeworn, banal, commonplace, hackneyed, overused, stale, tired, unimaginative,.sigh. Somebody compared this writer to the likes of Ludlum, Forsyth and Trevanian, true masters of the thriller genre.
I, for one, was not entertained and I will probably have to see a dentist to see about the damage caused by hours of teeth-gnashing. If this is what passes for modern thriller-writing, I think I am changing the class of books I have been reading with such relish for 40 years.
Are you kidding. But, it is pretty awful reading material.
Excuse me, ladies and gents - all 94 reviewers who went before me - have we been reading the same book. I am running out of synonyms for awful writing - expressions and words, we would have a 200 page decent book, instead of a 576-page bloat.
I will give this book two stars for the plot.
Literally coudn't put it down. That sounds like a cliche, but in this case it was absolutely true. This book is tense, compelling, and even fun. Simply put, I am an instant fan. And wow. Like many folks who have given praise in this forum, Rules of Deception was my first step into the world of Reich. I'm really glad I listened to those who compared this book to some of the greatest spy novels ever penned. The story is well-developed, the characters are not paper-thin, and the action is not over-done.
I cannot imagine such an undeveloped character "carrying" a series.A good-reading friend tells me the next book is better, but I don't know if I will even try it. I just could not buy into this.Then this. The narration was fine, it was the story that was so flawed. It is just ludicrous to posit or think that no one in these organizations would "blow the whistle" on these terrorist plans. One reviewer said I could not agree more. I am not interested in people who blam America for all the ills in the world, even in fiction.There was nothing about Jonathan Ransom that interested me. I know it is a novel, but I think that a thriller like this should bear some resemblance to reality and have some sense of logic.It was so "out there", so preposterous.two battling organizations are the Dept. That was the point at which the story lost ANY believability/credibility.
the most ridiculous thing of all-->>>>>the leader of one of the groups (Austin) is doing this because he converted to Christianity. His character was barely developed. I struggled to finish listening to this book.it was so improbable and almost ridiculous in its "convolutedness". of Defense and the CIA. EGADS.
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