The Intercept by Dick Wolf
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I hated the writing in this book. The dialogue is written more as some illiterate types a “text”. At one point, as I started reading the book, I was going to mark the horrible bits of dialogue. It took little time for me to realize I would likely spend more time marking the book, than reading it. It’s even more unfortunate when distinct voices are not part of the dialogue. Most all in the book have a similar banter. Trying to follow stunted sentences and unclear descriptions had me often lost in this simplistic novel of espionage.

Why an editor didn’t scrap this is beyond me. The dialogue alone is a reason to do it. Then there is the rest of the book. An over written, over described, under dialogued mess deserves editing. The writer obviously is not skilled in writing an actual novel. A hand full of paragraphs does not a chapter make. Especially it’s all drawing out to the inevitable. This book could have been 200, maybe 300 pages less, stream lined and focused.

There is a mystery embedded in all of this, which should have been the actual book. The biggest success I can tag the author with is that this contemporary novel’s bad guy I didn’t guess. The rest of the novel is so formulaic, the mystery is the only thing I didn’t know would happen at the end. I will add that the medium used and how it is used was a welcome surprise in the book.

Something else I liked was the written reasons why the bad person was after certain people near the very end of the book. Showed an understanding of the field involved that is rarely explored in espionage novels.

Bottom line: I do not recommend this book. 3 of 10 points.

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On Target by Mark Greaney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

‘On Target’ is a terrific adventure. So many books have a formalized plot. I charged into this book thinking I would travel a somewhat similar trail. Author Greaney takes his hero and hurls him into one mess after the other. Soon the original mission of the hero transforms into various levels of excitement and viewpoints and the ending becomes mysterious at each page turn.

The writing is very good. The characters are very well described and explained.

When the girl character appeared, I figured she was dropped in as love interest. She’s more than that. Though, she could have just as well be a boy. In that sense the woman character felt forced.

The other issue is my typical cry of a contemporary novel that could have had 50 less pages or so. It helps that Greaney has a compelling story to better carry the reader through extraneous text.

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 8 of 10 points.

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