Rules of Deception by Christopher Reich Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Rules of Deception
Book Review: His characters --- both primary and secondary --- are every bit as compelling and memorable as the storyline.
Summary: 5 Stars
RULES OF DECEPTION, the latest offering from award-winning author Christopher Reich, makes demands. Reich, whose bibliography consists of some of the most intelligent contemporary thrillers in print, has a penchant for what has been referred to elsewhere as "complex" plots. Fair enough; his work is challenging, in part because his stories are set very deeply in this world. As is thoroughly demonstrated in his new book, he has a good grasp of current events and the ways in which seemingly unrelated events are very closely tied together. Such things do not lend themselves to headline news, no matter how one tries to jam them to make them fit. Reich's work is painted on a much broader canvas, demanding singular attention to detail and to what has gone before. Fortunately, such effort on the part of the reader is rewarded one hundredfold.
Jonathan Ransom is the heart of RULES OF DECEPTION, a character who is both unique and an everyman, an expert in his field who suddenly becomes a fish out of water on a very hostile and inhospitable shore. Jonathan is a physician who eschews the fortune a medical practice could bring him, choosing instead to devote his knowledge and talents to Doctors Without Borders. As the book begins, he is taking a rare holiday with his nurse-wife, Emma, climbing the Swiss Alps and contemplating his career. Everything changes for Jonathan within the space of a few heartbeats when a blizzard sets in and Emma is lost to a hidden crevasse.
But he barely has time to grieve before his belief in his life and work is irrevocably altered. Not even 24 hours after the terrible mountainside accident, an envelope for Emma is delivered to their hotel room. All it contains is two baggage claim tickets, which are to be reclaimed at a remote baggage station. Puzzled and intrigued, Jonathan journeys to the site only to be attacked almost immediately by two men. Thanks to some luck and lightning fast reflexes acquired from working and living in dangerous places, he leaves one assailant dead and the other mortally wounded. However, Jonathan is horrified when he discovers that his attackers were Swiss policemen. Their deaths bring the Swiss authorities into play.
Meanwhile, two apparently unrelated deaths of "persons of interest" to Swiss counterespionage agents bring Marcus von Daniken, a quietly efficient and extremely competent investigator, into play. As Marcus's investigation slowly begins to dovetail into the deaths of the two policemen, and thus into Jonathan's world, he finds himself pursued by two Swiss law enforcement agencies and a shadowy, calculating assassin.
An unknown group of individuals are slowly but inexorably putting together the pieces of a plot to create an incident of international terrorism that will lead straight back to the Iranian government, in the hope of beginning a conflagration that will bring on a cataclysmic event. Jonathan slowly discovers, to his horror, that Emma had been leading a secretive double life and was an integral key in a plot that, if carried out, would result in the deaths of innocents. Whose side was Emma on? Was she trying to bring the plot to fruition, or prevent it? Grieving and angered by turns, even as he is pursued from all sides, Jonathan engages in an investigation on the run, aided only by an old family friend and headed toward what may well be the biggest shock of all.
Christopher Reich is a sure-footed guide through the labyrinthine plotting of RULES OF DECEPTION, and his characters --- both primary and secondary --- are every bit as compelling and memorable as the storyline, which reads as if it was ripped from tomorrow's headlines. Marcus von Daniken, in fact, almost steals the book away from the main characters, functioning in his own way as a lower key Samuel Gerard to Jonathan's Richard Kimble. And then there is Zvi Hirsch, an upper-level official in the Israeli government. He's not only one of the most intriguing characters in the book, but also one who you'll hope has a real-world model.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Book Review: Intense
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is very intense. I am trying something new. As D Thoombs suggested (from the book Don't Like to Read, Then Don't, Listen!: How to Turn Any Type of Text Into Audio Files That Can Be Read to You!) I am using a reader program. It has made this book so much more enjoyable. No more crunching over to read, and it is very easy to have the software reread sections you may have had confusion on.Book Review: Is this well-crafted Christian bashing?
Summary: 4 Stars
Reading Christopher Reich's Rules of Deception, I was very impressed with how he could write such an artfully-crafted story. By far, it is the best written work of fiction that I've read in a very long time. Excellently executed. The story line was engaging -- if not captivating. The skill in the use of language could set the standard of how language should be used in fiction. It was masterful.
However, besides how skillfully Christopher Reich constructed this book, the thing that stood out to me after finishing it was that, in a book filled with assassins, terrorists and rogue spies, the only truly, thoroughly, absolutely evil character in the book -- the only person beyond redemption, in some manner -- was an evangelical Christian. This perplexes me.
Admittedly, some of the most horrendous things done since the beginning of time were done in the name of Christ. Truly awful things have been done for the sake of a twisted apocalyptic vision. But, for the life of me, I can't explain the absolute evil of this book's main bad guy except in terms of simple Christian bashing.
I am a Christian, but I can readily see why some people don't like Christians. I'm not very sensitive or thin-skinned on the subject. Whatever bad things anyone has to say about Christians, I could probably find more points of agreement than not. But, it just seems over-the-top to make "the Christian" of this story the only purely evil character. I can see how "the bad guy" had to be a Christian (can't say more without giving away the story), but did he really have to be Evil incarnate?
So, despite how skillfully this book was written, it left me with a rather sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Book Review: Like many before it........
Summary: 3 Stars
This was an OK read but as with too many books on the shelf today,the plot was labyrinthine and the overabundance of complicated alliances became more tiring and far fetched than suspenseful and believable.
While the geopolitical focus was contemporary and interesting, I was sorry that he chose Doctors without Borders to play the role that it did. Regardless of how much one knows that this is a work of fiction, there is the very real risk of readers carrying from it an unfairly mistrustful impression of NGOs.
Book Review: Long time to Get it Together - Then Fizzed
Summary: 3 Stars
This novel starts with a good hook - the main character (a doctor with Drs Without Borders) goes climbing with his wife. She dies when she falls into a crevasse. Then, the reader is switched to Swiss authorities trying to manage anti-terrorism. Then we are back with the doctor and learn that his wife is not who he thought she was. This hook kept me reading. Through it all I wanted to find out who she was.
The book takes a long time to get the several plot elements and characters together. The short chapters are devoted to the Swiss, the CIA, an assassin, the doctor, and more. Amazingly, none of the characters are very compelling. All are a bit flat.
Even the doctor is not compelling as he hunts for the truth about about his wife while staying one step in front of all the people trying to kill him. This is another one of those thrillers where the amateur out-runs, out-fights and out-smarts all the professionals. This always difficult plotline is not pulled off here.
As one would expect when the plotlines of the Israelis, Iranis, two American groups, the Swiss and the amateur are all being told in short and disparate pieces, it is difficult to keep the plotlines straight. They don't blend into a discernible pattern until about two-thirds of the book, when the book gains interest. That interest is sustained until the very unsatisfying ending. Once the plot is discerned, there is not much new to it - except the decietful wife. There are the mid-east terrorists, European intelligence, CIA, Iran and Israel all done so many times.
All in all, the book is mediocre. For great thrillers in this genre go with Silva.