The chemist is Juliana Fortis, who uses the name Alex throughout the novel. A recruited orphan by the CIA she is a biologist who has conducted chemically-based torture to make the victims talk. CIA has named her Oleander, but as ruthless as Alex has been, she has a strong moral side. Now that the CIA has turned against her and has done away with her boss, Alex is on the run when the story begins. To say more on the plot would be giving it away, but the novel is very exciting and attention-grabbing, so much so that I couldn’t stop reading it, even though I have my reservations about some of the many twists inside the plot and the construction of the novel.

The main characters are drawn well including their toughness, romanticism, or quirkiness. I also liked the dogs and the importance they had in the story. And yes, there is a major romantic involvement, too.

The plot is extremely complicated, possibly contrived, and its action is non-stop, to the degree that a reader might beg for some quiet moments. Even at their slowest, some kind of a threat always brews underneath the scenes; however, I found its fast action to be continuous probably 90% of the time. I can appreciate a suspense story anytime, but I think quieter slow-action scenes should be interspersed more often throughout this plot. Also, because reading this story is like being shot by a submachine gun and it has such complicated action and a plethora of characters, I had to go back and read several sections again just to understand the flow of events.

Another misgiving I have about the plot is that the real antagonist never really showed up. It did give nuances or signs of its existence until the end. Some of the characters who were Alex’s allies were also eliminated by the “shadow” villain group quite unnecessarily and without a good enough reason.

Still, The Chemist is a good, entertaining novel with a certain magnetic effect, and I am sure it will find many young and old readers who crave more suspense than literary perfection.

some of the mention of violence

is Stephenie Meyer.

I neither recommend nor not recommend. It is a long book over 500 pages, and I found most of the plot twists unnecessary. It is entertaining and attention-grabbing, however. Read it if you wish.

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Created Jan 03, 2018 at 10:26pm • Submit your own review...