Continuing from "Fatal Intrusion"   with the Mary Sue theme... this book really got on my nerves because the main character is a flawless operative with flawless judgment and no weaknesses whatsoever. To the point where she can basically predict what's going to happen because she's such a good judge of character. As annoying as that can be to read, I can sometimes look past it if I'm in the mood for a "superhero" type story. It's why Mitch Rapp has been such an enduring character for years, and why Evan Smoak and Court Gentry, the protagonists of my two current favorite thriller series are so fun to watch. They're just so incredibly competent at everything that it's fun to watch them work.

But this book combines another element that pushes it just past the point of entertainment and into irritation. Not only is Amy the best at everything, but she frequently makes snap judgments that put other people at risk and, even if her hunches are proven out eventually, it's a real problem for someone that's supposed to lead a team of covert operatives when you have the team leader refuse to meet at a rendezvous point... then find another way out of a warzone only to jump off the helicopter because she changed her mind at the last minute... then refuse to come in and report because she's working on something in the field... this is the kind of person that would be bounced out of a military covert ops program so fast because she can't ever follow simple orders ... but everyone in the book is just like, "LOL that's Amy for you!" and brush it off because she's the best.

Patterson has been accused of phoning it in for the past several years, owning to the sheer number of books he publishes and and number of coauthors he works with. He's talked about his process before, where he basically comes up with the ideas and rudimentary outline of the story and then relies on his coauthor to flesh it out (i.e., do the actual writing work), and I think this was just a case where there was very little "fleshing out" that happened... it was just an expanded narrative version of a generic story and generic characters.

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Created Jan 18, 2025 at 7:37pm • Submit your own review...