Rob Jones (4)

The blurb made this book sound interesting, the reality is sadly that it's rather cheesy and, well, crap.

I read a wide variety of books from 1700s history to 1800s fiction to modern thrillers and this just was a bit painful to read. The characters were terribly shallow, the dialogue was cheesy and grating, the idea that they could launch a successful heist in an hours planning to steal from the one of the most secure areas of the Vatican was just absurd. As was the whole having a quick google for blueprints.

There was also some factual errors like a character taking a few Xanax tablets but then the author writes the character is waiting for the Diazepam to work it's magic, I assume this was an attempt to up the intellectual aspect of the novel, execept Diazepam is Valium and Xanax is Alprazolam. I guess at least he got right that it's a benzodiazepine.

I also found the whole idea of the characters organisation being called RAIDERS - "Rapid and Incognito Deployment, Extraction and Rescue Service" with the evil opposition being SPIDERS the abbreviated name of which escapes me at the moment but was equally as awkward, was just clunky and gave the whole novel a B grade feel.

I just really didn't like it.… (mere)