I like John Sandford. I have read 12 of his last books, and I am sorry to say that this book seemed to have been written by someone else. This Virgil Flowers character seems to have difficulty making up his mind to be a gentler version of Davenport, or one full of vinager and spices.

I would have rather seen him one way or another. Loose the "aw shucks" dual "f*ck you" attitude. Doesn't play right. Maybe I just like the Davenport character better.

I would give it a 3 and half if I could figure out how to put a rating on it.

This is probably the worst book I have ever read from Deaver. I wanted to take a scissors and cut the book apart and arrange it in chronological order. I spent about an hour reading it, constantly getting lost and finely giving up.

Then a day or so later, I started over to see if a second look would make it more understandable. It didn't, and I finely gave up.

As I say, I would have cut it apart, but I was reading it on a Kindle, and that was not an option. Please rewrite (or republish) in chronological order and I may try again. To date, I have read 18 previous Drever's books.

Was this written by someone else? I definitely would not recommend it.

Horrible book. Read the first 10-15 pages and gave up. Written by a 9 year old.

This has got to be the ABSOLUTELY worst book I have EVER READ. BAR NONE. No point, no direction, undefined characters, unrecognizable time line. Non existent story.

No redeeming quality. DO NOT BUY, BROW OR WASTE YOUR TIME READING THIS. I wish then had a minus rating. I would give it a minus 100! Stay away from this author. Sorry, but you would serve mankind better by making bricks instead of books.

VERY VERY bad book. 90% of the book was skipped, or skimmed. It went from tangent to tangent within tangent within tangent. I kept wondering when I was going to get back to the story. On a scale of 1 to 10 (bad to good) I would give it a minus 0. I purchased this book electronically and it pointed out one really bad thing about ebooks. You don't know what you have until you start to read it. Unfortunately I bought two books by this author, and am really afraid of trying to read it.

I must say that the story (if you cut all the other bs out) wasn't all that bad. Just a very poorly constructed book.

It appeared as if it was a class assignment of 100 people and each was REQUIRED to add something to the book. SAD.

I almost put it down after reading the first few pages. Not my type of book. But after reading several reviews on this site, I decided to finish it. It was slow at first, but I guess it took a while to set up the premise. Anyway, I am glad I stuck with it. Good story. It would have been fine without the last chapter, however. Way too confusing of a way to end a book.

I did learn a lot about the way a museum is run. I didn't know it was so academic. (Probably should have.)

Unlike some (well, one) reader, I found this book very entertaining. I say this, because during the day, or watching TV at night, I found myself thinking about the fate of the main character, Rick Berron. I thought, why not go back and continue the story instead of watching this TV program? To me, a book that invades my daily routine when I am not reading the book is a good book. Something I can look forward to when I am unable (or unwilling) to stop what I am doing and pick up the story.

It is funny, I was thinking this 'hero' would be flawed in some way, succumb to some temptation, but he, well, I will leave that to the reader. It is definitely worth your time.

Interesting story line. One other book I have read by Berry (the Amber Chamber) still sticks in my mind, years after I read it. I suspect this will be the same. Initially, I skipped a lot of the basis for the premise, which surely saddens the author. But at the time I felt the plot was so compelling that it didn't really need the 'validation' of the premise. Then when I had finished the book, I read the author's notes, and the questions and answers from the author, I realized that I missed a pretty significant chunk of the book, so I went back and re-read the contributions by Salibi.

My suggestions to a new reader would be to read the author's notes and the questions and answers FIRST then tackle the book.

In lieu of that, it begs for a re-read. Thanks for the solid research as usual. I look forward to the author's next book.

I like any story that is about the Enigma encription machine created by Germany during the 2nd World War. I did think the level of detail was a bit excessive, and ponderous, seeing it through to the end proved worthwhile. It may be in English thing.

I definitely felt the frustration of code breaking and now have a better appreciation for the tremendous effort the British went through. If someone hasn't said it in a while, THANKS.

There a couple of things that interested me about this book. First of all, I am a 'computer person'. Saying I am like a hacker is like saying a gas station attendant (if they still had them) is like an Indy 500 race car driver.

For the past 40 years I have made my living as a programmer from Basic, Fortran, COBOL, and into Visual Basic so I did get 'most' of the computer references, obsolete or not.

I don't think it is necessary to understand all the computer jargon, though it made me feel comfortable when he used it correctly. After all, we don't have to be a soldier to understand the dangers of war.

The Blue Nowhere is a frighteningly plausible story, well written with lots of blind alleys.

Another thing that interested me is that the location for the story is in my back yard. The antagonist lived in my home town and all the action took place within 10 miles of my home.

I have never thought about it before, but every story needs to be set someplace, usually someone else's town, state or country that I have little knowledge of. Sure I usually recognize an occasional European city or two I have been to but no story has ever been situated in my home town. It was kind of neat. I found my self saying, "I know that street." or even ocassionally, "There is no school any where near PARC." But by in large, it brought out the visualization of the setting. So I guess whenever a story is situated near the reader it should be appreciated because it seems to bring the story more to show more life.

All in all, programmer or not, Silicone Valley resident or not, you will enjoy this story. It may (read SHOULD) frighten you as well. show less

Another GREAT NOVEL by Greg Illes. Don't be dissuaded by the title. It is not as dark as the title suggests. It has a pace that is in keeping with other novels he has written. It is the type of novel that you think about while watching TV and thinking, "Gee, I could be reading about Alex Morse and that evil Dr. Tarver."

Don't worry, I am not giving anything away. You immediately know who the villains and the heroes are.

What is a mystery is how it comes together in the end. It clearly is more of a 'thriller' than a mystery. And thrilling it is.

As a regular Burke reader, I certainly wasn't disappointed with this book. I kept trying to read sections of it out loud to my wife to show her how something could be described. Where does he come up with these images? The first book I read by him a number of years ago (occassionally) had to do with seeing ghosts of long dead Confederate solders and I was a bit put off. But as I continue to read his works, I understand the imagery now, and thoroughly enjoy it.

I think that the descriptive language he uses in developing the story and painting the background of the story should be preserved in an art museum next to other great painters.

While I have never be in New Iberia, or much of Louisiana at all except New Orleans (BK), I bet if I was dropped there by some space ship, I could tell right where I was. All I can say is THANK YOU, MR BURKE. Keep them coming.

You want to know why we can't "win" in Iraq? This book gives a pretty dispassionate view of the situation in the Holy Lands, and by extension, the Kruds, Suni and Shia. Interesting, but at the same time depressing.

The author spoke at our Rotary Club and is very good speaker as well. Bona fides are certainly there for a book like this.

Incidently, the title is a little mis-leading as she mentioned in her talk and in the intro to the book. The book does not purport to have an answer, just explains the situation in the Holy in academic detail.

This should be a read for everyone, including our government leaders.

You can always tell when you have a bad book by the "Gee, when will this end?" feeling. This book is sort of like paint drying. An example might be he spends 2 pages 'discussing' how a character in the book doesn't have a sticker for her car, and goes about getting one.

There is a saying when someone tells you something you don't really want to hear and that is "TMI - Too Much Information." Well I have coined a new one: "TMD - Too Much Detail."

If it furthers the plot, or endures the reader to the character, or paints a more detailed background, fine, but detail for detail sake is wasting my time.

I kept waiting, all 772 pages for something to happen. I knew (or sort of knew the ending) but Griffin waited until the last page to confirm it.

It wasn't a suspense issue. It just felt like I weeded through the swamp to see road I knew was there all the time.

My recommendation, is don't waste your time on this book. I have read two in the past month. Now I recall why I quite reading him years ago. Maybe I won't forget the next time.

Typical WEB Griffin. Interesting, but average. (This is the first of the 'Men at War Novels' I have read.

I would give it a 5 out of 10. Maybe it is me, but I kept waiting (and waiting and waiting - through 749 pages)for something to happen. Maybe because it was a 'historical' novel, and history runs slow. But I remember novelist like Thomas Costaine (sp) who were never boring. If the 2nd and third are like this, I will definitely skip them.

The author either had no opinion of the immigration issue, or he was trying to appease both sides. It spent 100 pages telling both sides, with no real action, only promised action. I put it aside after 100 pages. sorry, but this was a really stupid book.

This was not good for me. I generally stay away from female authors because they (seem) to have a different perspective than male authors. It is just a preference. Having said that, the Lilac Bus by Maeve Binchy was great. I guess I mean it the genra of mystery, or spy novels.