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nancyflanagan 's review for:
State of Terror
by Louise Penny, Hillary Rodham Clinton
Three-plus.
The book starts out slowly. Really, really slowly. There are lots of characters and plot twists (and untwists, and re-twists) and the action never stops, but the pace is so frenetic, it's hard for the reader to engage with the actual story. Which means--characters aren't richly developed, so the reader can care about them or hate them or fear them-- they're just the Iranian Bad Physicist and the Pakistani Bad Minister or (worst of all) the Sidekick Who Looks Like June Cleaver. None of these people ever have interesting conversations or even a decent night's sleep--they're always getting on a plane, or crawling into a cave, or walking through a snowstorm without a coat or boots. Cardboard.
There are more incredible feats of perception and bravery in this book than are possible for real human beings. And more terrorist acts and secret codes and two-second warnings. Ellen Adams, the protagonist Secretary of State is superhuman, as are her children and best friend. Everybody else is suspect. And Eric Dunn, the 'former guy,' is--surprise, surprise--repulsive and totally amoral. Armand Gamache makes an appearance, as does Three Pines.
I have to say that the book got better, the further along you go. The last hundred pages or so are pretty good. But the first 350 pages are hard to engage with. I started the book in October, read 100 pages, then put it down. I had to re-read all 100 pages, because I remembered absolutely nothing.
The book starts out slowly. Really, really slowly. There are lots of characters and plot twists (and untwists, and re-twists) and the action never stops, but the pace is so frenetic, it's hard for the reader to engage with the actual story. Which means--characters aren't richly developed, so the reader can care about them or hate them or fear them-- they're just the Iranian Bad Physicist and the Pakistani Bad Minister or (worst of all) the Sidekick Who Looks Like June Cleaver. None of these people ever have interesting conversations or even a decent night's sleep--they're always getting on a plane, or crawling into a cave, or walking through a snowstorm without a coat or boots. Cardboard.
There are more incredible feats of perception and bravery in this book than are possible for real human beings. And more terrorist acts and secret codes and two-second warnings. Ellen Adams, the protagonist Secretary of State is superhuman, as are her children and best friend. Everybody else is suspect. And Eric Dunn, the 'former guy,' is--surprise, surprise--repulsive and totally amoral. Armand Gamache makes an appearance, as does Three Pines.
I have to say that the book got better, the further along you go. The last hundred pages or so are pretty good. But the first 350 pages are hard to engage with. I started the book in October, read 100 pages, then put it down. I had to re-read all 100 pages, because I remembered absolutely nothing.