Amelia Sinclair was once on the front lines as an embedded
journalist in one of the Gulf
wars. Now, she works for some network covering
the UN. One morning, she gets a poor quality video clip showing 4 American journalists being
kidnapped in Syria. They went over there to bag an interview with the current
Syrian President.
She takes it to her editor who freaks and drags her off to
an apartment of his in Brooklyn to try and look deeper into the clip. He then
calls on a source of his, Gabriel Jets to come in and look it over. Editor wants
to get a few burner phones and heads off to a corner market about the same time
Jets arrives via an alley entrance. Loud screams tip off Amelia and Gabriel to
the editor being killed on the sidewalk. When they look out the window, a
sniper tries to take Amelia out. Jets and Amelia escape using a fire escape
and a wild chase ensues. A chase that jumps around between NYC, Philly, lots of
DC locations (including the Oval Office), Syria, Kuwait, and Turkey.
It appears that the abduction is an ISIS attempt at swaying
public opinion. But in reality, it’s really just the first step in an attempted
coup within the US. The goal was to make the President look weak and open up an
avenue for those who truly want the US to stay as the one true megapower to
take over.
OK, a coup is an interesting take on the political thriller
genre and the premise has promise. For me, the problem in the presentation was
that there seemed to be some liberties made with the proverbial space-time continuum
as well as with grammar:
1.
People seemed to jump back and forth across the Atlantic
as though they were using the Enterprise’s transporter. The time and location
issues could have been alleviated had the author used day/time/location
headings between and within chapters.
2.
There are a lot of speaking parts in this drama.
Would’ve helped the reader keep up with each if they were identified maybe
every 2nd or 3rd chapter. Instead of just saying ‘McKaine’,
it might’ve help to occasionally remind the reader that he is the Chief of
Staff. Especially for the numerous minor characters.
3.
I sure hope the NetGalley copy I had was still a
work in progress because there were so many issues with wording, grammar, sentence
structure, and general clarity. Especially in the 2nd half of the
book. The multitude of errors distracted me from being fully vested in the plot.
4.
Character development could’ve been fleshed out
better with some backstory as to the why behind everyone’s motivation.
All in all, that’s too bad because the premise is pretty
good. My best suggestion to the publisher would be to keep the book in the
development process and let an experienced editor work with the author to make
the story more coherent and readable.
ECD
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