Rules of Deception by Christopher Reich Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Rules of Deception
Book Review: Quick Intense Read
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed reading this book and read it fairly quickly. However. I decided to give it four stars instead of three because it kept me going and entertained. Here are some of my observations:
1. The book reads like a Dan Brown or Ludlum novel. Very short chapters, moving from one key player to another and back again. We see things happening simultaneously from three or four different perspectives. However, there are some surprises thrown in and some long pauses between some of the characters that didn't quite work timing wise. The boogeyman is always there ready to jump out and kill him and yet sometimes, he keeps his distance and we forget about him.
2. Like in a Ludlum novel, the main character, Dr. Jonathan Ransom, is constantly confronted with shocking and crazy things that plunge him deeper and deeper into a maze that seems like he will never find his way out. Can you imagine being in love with a wife who is actually leading a totally provocative second life?
3. So the plot thickens, the world is about ready to experience world war three, while Jonathan is dodging bullets, gets lucky over and over again and escapes death and being arrested by the Swiss police, all while having just lost his wife in a skiing accident. A little too much Hollywood here. And yet, like Hollywood, it's fun. That said, I would enjoy it even more if he'd read a little LeCarre or Len Deighton and incorporate more plot plausibility, a little subtlety, a little more real spy stuff and a little less harrowing and exaggerated story lines. Not that the story lines themselves are bad. But they're too quickly put together and too immediate and I felt, too unbelievable, which makes the story not quite as gripping as it could have been.
All and all, it's worth the read, and like "Da Vinci Code," moves along quickly and in short readable chapters with characters you like and care about. It's a great airport novel but with a little work, could have been even better.
Book Review: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "AN INTERNATIONAL THRILLER THAT COMBINES ALL OF TODAY'S HEADLINES AND FEARS!"
Summary: 5 Stars
"A guard patrolling the custodial road caught the flash of yellow lying in the dirt. He approached cautiously... it was not like any butterfly he had seen before. First of all, it was larger. Its wings were rigid, with jagged bits of a paper-thin metal protruding from the silken skin. The fuzzy thorax was split in two and connected by a green wire. Mystified, he picked it up and examined it. Like all those who worked at the facility, he was first and foremost an engineer, and only reluctantly a soldier. What he saw left him shaken. Inside the thorax was an aluminum-cased battery no bigger than a grain of rice, and attached to it, a microwave transmitter. Using his thumbnail, he sheared away the antennae's skin to reveal a cluster of fiber-optic cables, thin as human hair."
"His hand shook as he radioed his superiors." "THEY HAVE FOUND US."
*** And so this pot-boiling international cauldron of intrigue begins! ***
What I am about to describe to you at a velocity faster than "ELECTRIFIED-HUMAN-TWITCH-MUSCLE-SPEED" will "NOT" give away any of the myriad of climactic-multi-level mysteries and conundrum's awaiting the potential reader's of this fast-paced and intelligent thriller.
Dr. Jonathan Ransom, a surgeon for Doctors Without Borders, is hiking on a treacherous mountain with his wife Emma, an administrative nurse in the same organization, as a storm starts to approach. Emma falls into an unseen crevasse and dies. One day later, before Jonathan's true mourning can even begin... events quickly unfold that makes Jonathan wonder if he really even knew who his wife was. From unclaimed packages... to missing explosives... to CIA agents capturing terrorists and transporting them illegally throw Swiss airspace... to a professional deranged assassin known as the "Ghost"... to double agents being murdered... to dirty cops... to terrorist suspects flown by America to the Middle East to be boiled in TWO-HUNDRED-DEGREE-WATER in a vat, till their skin comes off, in order to save hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives... and what questions of ethics would arise if the International Atomic Energy Agency knew that Iran had FIFTY-THOUSAND-centrifuges instead of FIVE-HUNDRED... if Iran had radioactive mineral's enriched to NINETY-SIX-PERCENT instead of THIRTY-PERCENT... and what if they had enough enriched uranium-235 to make FOUR AND MAYBE FIVE ATOMIC BOMBS?
The action never stops as the plots and schemes involve law enforcement from around the globe. There are as many fake passports in this novel as there are fake breasts in Hollywood. Although the reader is transported from country to country, a predominance of time is spent in Switzerland, where death is in the air, despite the fact that Switzerland as a country, recorded a total of sixty-seven homicides the previous year. Less than the American city of San Diego, which had one-seventh the population of Switzerland."
Anyone who says this book doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat... has lost their mind... as well as their seat! Oh yea... we also have "POISON DART FROGS!"
Book Review: Reads like a forgettable film...
Summary: 1 Stars
I don't read much of the spy thriller genre, but when I do, I hope that the author can match wits with the likes of someone from the intelligence community. Too much to ask, you say? Okay, well then how 'bout a little character development? How about some insightful historical context? No... ? A bit of thoughtful dialogue then, with one or two brilliant uses of descriptive "takes you there" scenery or witty turn of phrase? Alright, forget it. Can we have one or two cool spy gadgets and a wee bit of love and sexual tension?
In the end I couldn't finish it, even though I tried as it was a gift from a friend. Based on the first half though, I figure that that and the second half will probably show up on some daytime movie channel someday. Who knows, it might hold my attention until my workout's over on the treadmill...
May be a real page-turner for other folks, but it looks like Christopher Reich's works are not for me.
Book Review: Reich's Best Yet!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've read all of Christopher Reich's books and this one is the best, yet. Fast-moving, complex plot that kept me guessing "who dunnit". I couldn't put it down and powered through it in record speed.Book Review: Review of Rules of Deception
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved reading this book. I finished it in only a couple of days. I enjoyed how the plot kept twisting and their was alot of action in the story. Am definitely looking forward to the next book coming out in August. Would recommend it to anyone who loves these kinds of books.