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A review by adamrbrooks
The Hellfire Club by Jake Tapper
2.0
Jake Tapper is a smart and interesting journalist and news personality. Unfortunately, his novel is dumb, predictable (except it was even dumber than I thought), poorly written and has a high schooler's tendency to empty the notebook of all research for no real reason.
There's actually a point where someone is driving over a bridge, and Tapper makes sure to note it had just opened, and was the third-longest bridge in the world. Party scenes have to show "Hey! I looked up the top 10 songs of this week in history!"
If this conspiracy theory had been played for farce (like Hiassen) or gone even more over the top (like Brown) it could have worked.
I need to check out some of Tapper's non-fiction; then the random fact dumps will make more sense, and directly explaining someone's motives will be part of the point, not just a sign of poor craftsmanship.
There's actually a point where someone is driving over a bridge, and Tapper makes sure to note it had just opened, and was the third-longest bridge in the world. Party scenes have to show "Hey! I looked up the top 10 songs of this week in history!"
If this conspiracy theory had been played for farce (like Hiassen) or gone even more over the top (like Brown) it could have worked.
I need to check out some of Tapper's non-fiction; then the random fact dumps will make more sense, and directly explaining someone's motives will be part of the point, not just a sign of poor craftsmanship.