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From:Christopher Reich , Doubleday ,
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#9954 |
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2 of 3 customers found the following review helpful:
 Quick Intense Read, 2008-09-02
I enjoyed reading this book and read it fairly quickly. However. I decided to give it four stars instead of three because it kept me going and entertained. Here are some of my observations:
1. The book reads like a Dan Brown or Ludlum novel. Very short chapters, moving from one key player to another and back again. We see things happening simultaneously from three or four different perspectives. However, there are some surprises thrown in and some long pauses between some of the characters that didn't quite work timing wise. The boogeyman is always there ready to jump out and kill him and yet sometimes, he keeps his distance and we forget about him.
2. Like in a Ludlum novel, the main character, Dr. Jonathan Ransom, is constantly confronted with shocking and crazy things that plunge him deeper and deeper into a maze that seems like he will never find his way out. Can you imagine being in love with a wife who is actually leading a totally provocative second life?
3. So the plot thickens, the world is about ready to experience world war three, while Jonathan is dodging bullets, gets lucky over and over again and escapes death and being arrested by the Swiss police, all while having just lost his wife in a skiing accident. A little too much Hollywood here. And yet, like Hollywood, it's fun. That said, I would enjoy it even more if he'd read a little LeCarre or Len Deighton and incorporate more plot plausibility, a little subtlety, a little more real spy stuff and a little less harrowing and exaggerated story lines. Not that the story lines themselves are bad. But they're too quickly put together and too immediate and I felt, too unbelievable, which makes the story not quite as gripping as it could have been.
All and all, it's worth the read, and like "Da Vinci Code," moves along quickly and in short readable chapters with characters you like and care about. It's a great airport novel but with a little work, could have been even better.
 Long time to Get it Together - Then Fizzed, 2008-09-01
This novel starts with a good hook - the main character (a doctor with Drs Without Borders) goes climbing with his wife. She dies when she falls into a crevasse. Then, the reader is switched to Swiss authorities trying to manage anti-terrorism. Then we are back with the doctor and learn that his wife is not who he thought she was. This hook kept me reading. Through it all I wanted to find out who she was.
The book takes a long time to get the several plot elements and characters together. The short chapters are devoted to the Swiss, the CIA, an assassin, the doctor, and more. Amazingly, none of the characters are very compelling. All are a bit flat.
Even the doctor is not compelling as he hunts for the truth about about his wife while staying one step in front of all the people trying to kill him. This is another one of those thrillers where the amateur out-runs, out-fights and out-smarts all the professionals. This always difficult plotline is not pulled off here.
As one would expect when the plotlines of the Israelis, Iranis, two American groups, the Swiss and the amateur are all being told in short and disparate pieces, it is difficult to keep the plotlines straight. They don't blend into a discernible pattern until about two-thirds of the book, when the book gains interest. That interest is sustained until the very unsatisfying ending. Once the plot is discerned, there is not much new to it - except the decietful wife. There are the mid-east terrorists, European intelligence, CIA, Iran and Israel all done so many times.
All in all, the book is mediocre. For great thrillers in this genre go with Silva.
1 of 4 customers found the following review helpful:
 Expect to lose a lot of sleep, 2008-08-31
This story pulls readers in and won't let them go until it's finished. If you read at night before bed, as I do, expect to spend a few extra hours reading every night until you find answers to all the questions that start building from the very first chapter.
2 of 3 customers found the following review helpful:
Whiz-bang, gee whiz spy thriller with little punch, 2008-08-30
A young do-gooder, a doctor with an organization that delivers free medical services to hot spots around the globe, needs a vacation. He and his gorgeous young wife go skiing where she promptly breaks her leg and then falls deep into a crevice. Brokenheartedly as he goes through her belongings he finds mysterious items. From there he finds money, lots of it and a secret identity. soon mysterious people are chasing him, and the fate of the world as we know it hangs in the balance.
Sound familiar? Well it should. Secret identity spy thrillers have been around for a long time. what makes this one mildly interesting is that all the hot button elements of the global war on terror are presented in one book. We get agency assassins, microbot drones, Swiss and Bahamian bank accounts, large drones, G-8 meetings, and lots of backstabbing and treason.
What is troubling about this book is that the characters are so flat and so unmemorable. The plot may be hoary, but Christopher Reich does a pretty good job playing with the big toys-the weaponry available to modern spies that exceeds anything Q ever dreamed up for Bond. The plot gets a little overwrought as well and the pacing is sometimes too slow and at times too fast. Unfortunately this reader found himself being willing to settle for an explanation as to the true identity of the doctor's wife.
I wanted to like this book, but in the end I couldn't get enthusiastic about it. I suspect you will have the same problem.
1 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
Good read, 2008-08-30
Rules of Deception is not the best book I've read but it certainly one of the best. It really keeps you guessing. Even though it is fiction it's content is based on the very real continuing threat of Iran and nuclear weapons. It gives great insight on just how technologically advanced our country can be.
As usual, Amazon made it very worth the price which was probably at least $10 cheaper than I could get it in a bookstore shipping included.
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