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7hm's review
4.5
A prose book from his Queen & Country series which also saw a number of comic stories over the years. It focuses on a couple characters from one of the British special services and one particular POV terrorist bad guy character. A very mid 2000s post-9/11 plot about a terrorist attack in London and the ramifications of what comes next.
Rucka is at his best with this spy thriller stuff, both in the comics and in prose. He writes fast snappy action and dialogue, and moves from beat to beat pretty quickly. He pauses for the required back room intrigue but doesn’t get bogged down in it. There are deaths but it’s not too gory and there’s sex but it’s not too gratuitous (other than the female main character being very into sex, which is fine to me). The main characters feel pretty well realized and their motivations make sense, and while they are shown to be super competent, that’s also the whole concept of this side of the genre so I’m ok with that. It feels a lot like a modern interpretation of a Bond book.
The only downside to me was that the ending was forecast a mile away. I like a bit more of a twist in my spy thrillers, but this was also the first Q&C prose so I’m willing to forgive him sticking to the basics.
Definitely a recommendation from me if you like this kind of stuff.
Rucka is at his best with this spy thriller stuff, both in the comics and in prose. He writes fast snappy action and dialogue, and moves from beat to beat pretty quickly. He pauses for the required back room intrigue but doesn’t get bogged down in it. There are deaths but it’s not too gory and there’s sex but it’s not too gratuitous (other than the female main character being very into sex, which is fine to me). The main characters feel pretty well realized and their motivations make sense, and while they are shown to be super competent, that’s also the whole concept of this side of the genre so I’m ok with that. It feels a lot like a modern interpretation of a Bond book.
The only downside to me was that the ending was forecast a mile away. I like a bit more of a twist in my spy thrillers, but this was also the first Q&C prose so I’m willing to forgive him sticking to the basics.
Definitely a recommendation from me if you like this kind of stuff.
redsmooth's review
5.0
Greg Rucka is one of my favorite authors and I read the entirety of his Queen and Country series from Oni-Press. It was great to read the continuing adventures of Tara Chace. Although this book is over 470 pages, it read pretty quickly. What I love about Rucka’s writing is that you can tell that he is well researched. I loved how we get two concurrent stories, one from Tara’s side and her journey. The other from Sinan, one of the villains in the story. We get to watch as these tales begin to intersect. I would gladly recommend this to anyone else and I will be reading the rest of the novels in this series.
mathewsnyder's review
4.0
A Gentleman’s Game is the first novel, which squeezes in somewhere between other mission “arcs” in the comic book volumes. It’s easily the best Tara Chace story I’ve read (I later caught on that Rucka is more novelist than graphic novelist; fortunately he’s no slouch either way). It’s a story revolving around Tara Chace’s need to feel useful, perhaps seek some revenge on Islamic fundamentalist terrorists active in the UK and beyond. And, it also has Chace chasing after a genuine love interest in her former colleague.
Rucka does an admirable job shifting perspective among Chace, her hard ass boss Paul Crocker, and an English born Muslim terrorist antagonist. Rucka’s not shy about putting his protagonists in ugly territory, trusting that the reader will stick around. similarly, his work at making a messy character in the terrorist both utterly disgusting and fascinating. He manages to make a fanatic — and the terrorist truly is that — interesting. We get the inside voice on the terrorist’s resolve, but we’re not foolish enough to buy his madness and see it for the manipulative evil that he performs.
The book’s a thriller, and fills that role well. While I saw the dramatic ending coming in those final chapters, the pacing and excitement throughout makes for a great read with enough carefully considered real-world relevance to avoid the escapism route.
Originally posted at my blog, www.riverwords.net.
Rucka does an admirable job shifting perspective among Chace, her hard ass boss Paul Crocker, and an English born Muslim terrorist antagonist. Rucka’s not shy about putting his protagonists in ugly territory, trusting that the reader will stick around. similarly, his work at making a messy character in the terrorist both utterly disgusting and fascinating. He manages to make a fanatic — and the terrorist truly is that — interesting. We get the inside voice on the terrorist’s resolve, but we’re not foolish enough to buy his madness and see it for the manipulative evil that he performs.
The book’s a thriller, and fills that role well. While I saw the dramatic ending coming in those final chapters, the pacing and excitement throughout makes for a great read with enough carefully considered real-world relevance to avoid the escapism route.
Originally posted at my blog, www.riverwords.net.
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