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biblionnoisseur's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
3.0
luneclaire's review
4.0
I'm going to miss these characters. I'm not going to say I loved everything the author did. I eye-rolled pretty hard at the ridiculousness of a few scenes/scenarios and at certain sophomoric characterizations, but I cared about these spooks. I was invested in what happened. I literally laughed out loud. I cried. I wanted to Gibbs-smack them upside the back of the head (mostly Nate). I didn't want it to come to an end, and now that it has, I'm sure my imagination will wander and wonder what they might be up to in "their world."
andrewschreck's review against another edition
3.0
Overall, a good ending to a good series. No spoilers, but if you've read the other two you'll be satisfied with the third one.
mkesten's review against another edition
3.0
Just finished the 3rd in Jason Matthews’ “Red Sparrow” series, “The Kremlin’s Candidate,” about the trials and travails of Dominika Egorova, Russian spy extraordinaire, and Nate Nash of the CIA. I have to admit it from the start: my favourite feature of these novels is the salty language of the spys and spymasters. I am a husband, father, employer, and owner of retail stores and by mandate I have to be a very polite person from morning to night. One of my guilty pleasures, and one I counsel my daughter against, is using bad words, and especially bad words in the service of humour. Matthews has me covered. I don’t think I have heard nearly as many inventive uses for male private parts as he disgorges in his spy series. So he keeps me laughing throughout. The humour doesn’t hide the sadism in the characters, especially in his most evil villains. The stories are gory, sexist, and technical. I’ve heard Matthews interviewed about the stories but strangely the interviewers did not take him up on the recipes that punctuate the ends of the chapters. Sometimes the recipes are for great dishes, sometimes just canapés, and sometimes downright disgusting, such as the boiled cabbage one might find in Moscow Airport on a late, foggy evening. Maybe there’s a precedent for them, but I haven’t seen one. It did make me think for a bit on the life of a covert agent travelling around the world and having to acclimatize him/herself to local cuisine. You either have to have a strong stomach, or a penchant for cooking your own food. Having lived in London in the 1970’s I can tell you that survival meant avoiding English cooking for Chinese, Italian, and mostly Indian cooking. Times have changed a little over there. I live in Toronto where you have the opportunity to experiment with a hundred different cuisines and go back to your own when you’ve blundered. But for a spy working in officially “denied service” areas, you may not have a choice. It’s kebabs over a fire or nothing.
ericwheeler's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
5.0
jefecarpenter's review
3.0
It was living up to it's heritage, even surprising me in the middle with a wonderfully fresh set of characters and setting, but then something happened to the writing in the last third; almost as if someone else finished the book, and they left a few cut-and-pastes by mistake.
breareadsbooks's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0