Frost's Lt. Alex Delillo is a dedicated law-enforcement professional who is thrown by the developing case of hunting a killer who has a lethal expertise in rigging explosives. And Delillo's situation turns additionally frightful as this same criminal kidnaps her teen-age daughter during her investigation of him.
The book is action-packed with dangerous and tense situations. And Frost gives the reader Delillo's perspective in a first person narrative that nicely personalizes the novel.
That said, only one of us appeared to enjoy the book's entire package of characters, story, action, etc. One person mentioned how the story appeared to start like an episode of TV's 24 but lost its way. And, to be fair, that TV series certainly takes it leaps of logic but for this novel it led to frustration. The prolonged involvement of Delillo in a personal case--she assists in handling the kidnapping--and headstrong actions call her judgment in question. Moreover, is Delillo really the only one is charge of all investigations? Puzzling.
Now, this stripped-down novel action thriller has pluses but the lack of characterization, background and some detail turned the book into more of an endurance test than a compelling read. I remember how I mentioned at the start of the book discussion that this author has another book in this series and I asked if anyone had read it or found it. No one did and typically a few in the book club will read other books in a well-liked single title of a series.
Frost's second book with Delillo is Never Fear which was published earlier this year.
2 comments:
That was a pretty good synopsis of our discussion. I would add that at least two of us like the bad guys the most in the story.
That was a pretty good synopsis of our discussion. I would add that at least two of us like the bad guys the most in the story.
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