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A review by hcq
The Wolf at the Door by Jack Higgins
3.0
Not bad, though I never like starting a series in the middle (or with its most recent, as this is).
It started off with a bang, then had a couple of pages of genuinely clunky exposition, as people who'd known each other for years met and explained themselves purely for the reader's benefit. "Hello, John Doe, old friend and former foe I've known for umpty-ump years. Remember how we met, when all this stuff happened, and this, and this, that you couldn't possibly have forgotten? No, I haven't either. What's happening now?"
Once that (frankly sloppy) junk is out of the way, though, Higgins settles in and delivers a perfectly workmanlike thriller. I liked his Rashomon approach of telling about the various groups in the story, and again, he's scrupulously fair; the bad guys aren't just bad for the sake of it (they have their reasons), half the good guys used to be bad guys themselves, and it's clear that good and bad are concepts that can easily shift.
Clearly, I need to start this series at the beginning, too. This one was #17, so I have a lot of catching up to do...which I'm rather looking forward to.
It started off with a bang, then had a couple of pages of genuinely clunky exposition, as people who'd known each other for years met and explained themselves purely for the reader's benefit. "Hello, John Doe, old friend and former foe I've known for umpty-ump years. Remember how we met, when all this stuff happened, and this, and this, that you couldn't possibly have forgotten? No, I haven't either. What's happening now?"
Once that (frankly sloppy) junk is out of the way, though, Higgins settles in and delivers a perfectly workmanlike thriller. I liked his Rashomon approach of telling about the various groups in the story, and again, he's scrupulously fair; the bad guys aren't just bad for the sake of it (they have their reasons), half the good guys used to be bad guys themselves, and it's clear that good and bad are concepts that can easily shift.
Clearly, I need to start this series at the beginning, too. This one was #17, so I have a lot of catching up to do...which I'm rather looking forward to.