Jason
Another bad one. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue the series or not. Basically, main character is a guy whose wife leaves him because he's “too nice” (or put another way, is a people pleaser and doesn't like to stand up for himself), but decides to go on their planned vacation to their friends' vacation home in the south of France anyways. There, he has to deal with the harassment of a mosquito that might not be real and a widower who has decided to just be the biggest damn asshole imaginable.
Honestly, I have no idea why it took almost the entire story before the other characters (who exist pretty much as just first names) called the a-hole out for being a jackass. The ending was bland and over all the story was subpar and only slightly better than the previous one in this series. Pretty much, I just didn't care about the main character and what he had to go through.
1.5 stars and barely even that. A boring “mystery” in name only. I felt zero connection to any of the characters and didn't really care about the protagonist. This felt thoroughly phoned in, which I'm slowly starting to realize is probably the case with the whole Amazon Original Stories thing in general.
A solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐. I was expecting a bog standard thriller novel, but this shit was - to quote a Gwen Stefani song - was bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s. Like seriously, the thing that I thought was going to be the epic climax was only epic (and crazy af), but not the climax. It just got wilder from there. Goddamn.
You know what? Screw it, ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2 stars.
It was good until the ending, which felt rushed and after the often over-the-top zaniness of the rest of the book (one of the main characters, Lord Worth, had his precious oil rig outfitted with stolen military weaponry that he himself had stolen!), it pretty well flopped. Otherwise, it was a fun read that I would recommend for anybody who likes old action movies.
⭐⭐⭐ out of 5.
I often use the phrase “didn't blow my socks off” to describe books that are good, but not outstandingly good, and this aptly describes The Bormann Testament. Did I enjoy reading it? Yes. Is it going to be a book of the year for me? Nope, but that's fine. If I hadn't liked it, I would have DNF'd it and moved on.
The idea of Martin Bormann - Hitler's private secretary and right-hand man - surviving the war and trying to sell a tell-all memoir is interesting, but also an anachronism in retrospect. In reality, Bormann died just after Hitler painted a wall with his brains and before Berlin fell to the Soviets, but at the time this novel came out, it was unclear whether he was alive or dead. His remains wouldn't be found until 1975 and definitely identified via DNA testing in 1998. Of course, if it was known that he was dead, then this novel wouldn't exist.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about the main character, Paul Chavasse. He was not in any sense a James Bond clone. In fact, he would probably only qualify as one of those 00 agents that were sometimes mentioned as being killed in the movies. He was often caught flatfooted and found himself being rescued by one of the other characters in the novel. It's not really a surprise, then, that Jack Higgins only wrote six books starring Chavasse (the last being in 1969) and moved on to other characters.
Having said that, I might continue the series, provided I can get my hands on the next book in the series.
3.5 stars.
This was better than the first because it was actually a spy novel, whereas the first book in the series felt more like crime fiction. I enjoyed the low stakes nature of the plot as well as the use of Sweden as the locale.
My one critique is that it seems like Donald Hamilton's knowledge of firearms and how they work was limited and incomplete. On the other hand, at least he wasn't like these modern action thriller writers who are overly detailed about guns.
I swear the guy narrating these things sounds exactly like James Coburn, lol.
Going in, I expected this to be one of those men's adventure pulps that were popular back in the 60s, with the chief focus being on lots of sex and lots of violence.
I was wrong, because while there is sex and violence, it was never in copious amounts nor was it the chief attraction. They're there, but only as the plot dictates and the plot didn't dictate for it much.
The writing was good and was the prime driver for the book. The plot was basic, but the writing and dialogue more than made up for it.
3.75 stars.
This was focused less on the dispatcher aspect of series and more on the mystery element. That's not to say that the former was chucked out the window, it just didn't form the central element of the plot like in the first book. I'm fine with this because the plot was good enough to carry its own weight.
This is an odd book because it's obvious that the plot was secondary to the prose. If you like really nice writing, then you'll enjoy this book. If you like a good mystery, then you won't. The plot is flimsy, the mystery predictable. The Woman Who Married a Bear could very easily have been a literary novel about an alcoholic in Alaska and his interactions with other people, including his born-again ex-wife. Why John Straley decided to make it a (nominally) mystery novel is the real mystery.
3.5 stars.
