Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.28 AVERAGE
3.28 AVERAGE
Fast-paced from the start. Good short read. Main character reminds me a bit of a common man James Bond crossed with Liam Neeson in Taken.
Una novela de espías a la vieja usanza que se acusa a sí misma de ser una novela barata ¡Maravilloso! He tenido el corazón en un puño durante todos los capítulos de la persecución. Y todo ello justo antes del estallido de la Primera Guerra Mundial.
Interesting as an example of the kind of invasion adventure story serial from the period but doesn't really hold up today. The opening chapter has a guy describe a Jewish conspiracy and then when we find out he was wrong about the Jewish part our narrator calls a Greek person a "dago" - very charming example of British upper class prejudices. Overall there's just not an interesting story and the episodes are so clearly tied to fulfilling a serial format that as a novel it's hard to take seriously. It's basically readable but it's so daft and generic with boring chases around the same tiny patch of Scottish land that there's no reason to. Just a historical curiosity. 1 star is a little harsh maybe but it's just. Not good
.
.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Fast-paced adventure, but something tells me the movie was better.
At least it's over.
I'm probably not well equipped to judge a tale of espionage as it isn't a genre I normally read, but as a young girl, I loved Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. This precursor was just completely boring to me. Isn't that exactly what a spy novel should not be - - boring?
The book introduces us to Hannay who is very, very bored. I could make a snarky comment here, but I'll refrain. Another man in his apartment building, Scudder, is on the run from the mysterious and evil Black Stone, and he asks Hannay to hide him. Scudder has some knowledge of a poorly explained political plot and that makes him a threat. He is quickly murdered leaving Hannay behind as a potential suspect. The rest of the book is about Hannay on the run and Hannay playing detective.
Neither Hannay interested me in the least.
When he was on the run, there's a lot of description of hills and meadows and airplanes flying overhead, and honestly I just didn't care.
When he was in detective mode, that was an improvement, but until the last 10 pages or so, didn't really capture my imagination. Mostly because my idea of the objectives of The Black Stone were fairly hazy throughout.
Hannay constantly finds himself in the most impossible predicaments, but manages to weasel out of them with the most unlikely solutions. So believability wasn't a big strength of this narrative.
Every other character is secondary. This book is about action. And the action just didn't grab me because the secondary characters were so minimally drawn and unimportant that there really was no emotion and no character development throughout. Literally, I fell asleep with three button clicks of my Kindle every night for the past three. That's how bored I was.
I'm probably not well equipped to judge a tale of espionage as it isn't a genre I normally read, but as a young girl, I loved Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. This precursor was just completely boring to me. Isn't that exactly what a spy novel should not be - - boring?
The book introduces us to Hannay who is very, very bored. I could make a snarky comment here, but I'll refrain. Another man in his apartment building, Scudder, is on the run from the mysterious and evil Black Stone, and he asks Hannay to hide him. Scudder has some knowledge of a poorly explained political plot and that makes him a threat. He is quickly murdered leaving Hannay behind as a potential suspect. The rest of the book is about Hannay on the run and Hannay playing detective.
Neither Hannay interested me in the least.
When he was on the run, there's a lot of description of hills and meadows and airplanes flying overhead, and honestly I just didn't care.
When he was in detective mode, that was an improvement, but until the last 10 pages or so, didn't really capture my imagination. Mostly because my idea of the objectives of The Black Stone were fairly hazy throughout.
Hannay constantly finds himself in the most impossible predicaments, but manages to weasel out of them with the most unlikely solutions. So believability wasn't a big strength of this narrative.
Every other character is secondary. This book is about action. And the action just didn't grab me because the secondary characters were so minimally drawn and unimportant that there really was no emotion and no character development throughout. Literally, I fell asleep with three button clicks of my Kindle every night for the past three. That's how bored I was.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
this is pretty stupid but i enjoyed it