Argylle

Superior to the film, and mostly because the film tries to undo a lot of what’s in the book. I don’t care if it is a marketing stunt, I enjoyed this wannabe-spy novel.

Argylle is a lost soul who gets caught up in something big with the CIA. Partly to escape, and partly to be found, he joins a team to chase down a lost artifact before the bad guys find it first. It’s more of an ode to Indiana Jones than James Bond. And that’s likely what kept me interested in the adventure.

If not for its link with the upcoming movie, this is not a book I would have picked up on my own. I don't reach for spy novels often at all, and "Argylle" hasn't especially persuaded me to read more in the future. It's a little exciting at times, but simultaneously feels like someone fed the Indiana Jones franchise into an AI bot and then said, "Make me another one! And include the CIA!" I also struggled immensely to try and care for any of the characters. Conway does a great job at telling me why I should (like Argylle being an orphan, or really missing his parents, or how he feels like he doesn't fit in) but there was just a lot of disconnect between myself and the characters on the page. The writing is both somehow try-hard and too show more predictable, like Conway is trying to mimic another author but forgets to add any of her own flair.
However, I WOULD recommend this to certain readers. I think there is definitely an audience that will enjoy this book! It's simply not to my personal taste. show less

I was interested in this book due to the movie coming out soon. However, the book and the movie are not the same thing! In the book, it is a hard-hitting spy thriller, whereas the book is a comedy send up of the alleged author being inserted into the spy novels she writes.
So, because of the differences, the book was not what I expected.
The book is the story of Aubrey Argylle, a CIA agent who was orphaned when his parents were killed. He spent time in the jungles of Thailand, but is called to assist in a Russian spy / jewel heist / political operation. There is a lot of action, quite a bit of violence, and also traitors. It may keep you guessing, but it will definitely take you across the globe!
I liked reading about the possible show more conspiracy of the Amber Room, as I have been to The Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg! show less

Very enjoyable, even though this genre is now problematic for me at best. I used to enjoy a spy story; now I feel like I'm capitulating to copaganda when I read or watch one. But I really enjoyed the movie, and when I came across this at the library I wondered how it would relate. Turns out, and I don't think this is a spoiler in any way, not at all! This book has almost nothing to do with the movie other than having "inspired" it. I can't even imagine how that occurred! But anyway, if you like a spy story you'll probably like this book.

For some reason I never really clicked into this book. It wasn't badly written, the characters were pretty well fleshed out, there was lots of action, but it never really engaged me as I like to be engaged. Oh well.

So, I was on border whether to give this book one or two stars. In the end it is one star no matter how I look at it.

This novel is a tie-in (or maybe better said, extension of) world introduced to us via Argylle movie. If I understand correctly this is one of the novels main protagonist in the movie actually wrote (they did the same thing that was done for "Richard Castle" novels - books written by the fictional characters :))

That is one and only connection with the movie. Action-crazy as it was, movie had a charm, it had interesting plot (although a little bit too much like Knight and Day or Mr. Right, but OK, it is that genre), action and adventure. I might be in minority but I liked the movie, it was pretty entertaining (unlike for show more example The Ministry of Ungentlemenly Warfare which was ...... WW2 GI Joe but so over-exaggerated it was a ridiculous to the extreme) and had its crazy minutes, but then so did King's Men, Shoot 'em up and other similar movies (some James Bond movies also fall into this category).

Book on the other hand can only stain the movie, in my opinion. At first I thought book was derived from a script, but then I got the feeling it was multiple scripts, multiple authors. But even with this taken into account, book is so ...... disheveled ..... it is just incredible. It is just a hodgepodge of cliches and scenarios taken from other books and action movies.

First our hero Argylle - I think his level of empathy is even beyond empathy of JC. I mean his eyes water at the sight of any injustice that you start laughing out loud as he gets upset with whatever happens around him. He is so sensitive, I was from time to time wondering am I reading light erotica/romantic novel, because I came across this type of characters only in these.

Then, his level of perception would cause depression in any CSI show team. He sees things that are missed by experts tasked only to look for these specific things. And not once, twice - every bloody time. At some point you have to wonder why they do not ask him first for everything important, instead wasting time.

When you look at it superficially, like from this review, comment would be - OK, this is that genre, all action heroes are like this. And I would say, yeah, but you need to read the book to see how badly this is written. I have read GI Joe novels that are more realistic. You need to read this to appreciate some B pulp novels of old (like Ninja novels for example). They are masterpieces in comparison.

And then we get to the part of novel, where I guess whoever wrote this, decided they need to be "modern".

One of the characters, with no interest nor experience in man-woman relations is used as a source of wisdom for human relations. Apparently, to paraphrase, "men hate women and are constantly afraid of them". And everyone just nods, man, what wisdom. Apparently only person that truly loves women is our Argylle (wtf?) but then again he would melt down Medusa with his tears.

Same character did have discussion with her family about her sexual orientation. So, Argylle suggest her to explain her her situation and she finally writes the letter, not email, mind you, because that would be more personal. So, this is intelligence service agent, highly trained with promising career. But she still did not come to terms with herself (on what I think is first thing done through screening of anyone for any security service), so she is hurt when she gets response from her family scolding her on her sexual preferences. But being a "strong woman", her reply to Argylle's "I am sorry to hear that" is to paraphrase "spare me of male heterosexual bullshit". I mean, who talks and behaves like this? Only thing that has some realism in it is her family's response, there are still people that cannot come to terms with things like this. But the way this is treated from this secret agent perspective is on teen level and I have read similar topics in books aiming at teen/YA readers.

Then there is CIA team lead. She is competent, empathic (of course not at Argylle's level, nobody can be at that level, it is not healthy), has husband and kids but also a lover (and serious one at that, to a degree that she does not even think about her husband). Why are we told this? Who knows, I guess to show how ..... successful? ...... she is. Of course since she is a woman, she is invisible (wttttf?) so when she boards CIA jet to get to super secret location, steward (since he is a man, riiiight) thinks that she is someones mother or grandmother so he explains her that this plane can change directions but do not worry (at this point I was questioning my sanity for picking up the book in the first place). I mean somebody boards the super secret plane en route to top secret site, and because passenger is woman she is considered someones spouse or relation - where in f***s sake does this come from? Somebody actually read this and thought good? Who? Help that person, send that person to a specialist.

Another weird thing is that various contacts she has (all men) and to which she sends her team to talk about findings ..... they all talk about her in lovers terms. Considering they are all librarians or archivists I guess this was for giggles and only bright spot acting as commercial for these work positions. But weird to the hilt.

I wont go into technical stuff that make James Bond movie physics realistic (radio does not work, but video does - apparently secret agents carry two systems, audio and video, completely separately - for some reason video works even deep under the mountain; agent gets killed by a pistol bullet fired from about 500 meters, from above and angle, that goes through his vest, through agent's body and ends in the holy book he carries in his front - pistol bullet, that gets stopped by a book after flying for quite a while and penetrating armor and human body (and this is 9mm bullet - even if this was SMG it would be ridiculous); how big is the book? Hardcover weighing like 1-1.1kg? And somebody carries that into potentially combat situations by carrying it in the front? In what fragging universe?).

Then we have antagonists. To say they are caricature is overstatement. They are all Russians (of course) and guilty for about everything bad since 1990's. They all have wild eyes, enormous necks, they kill and torture people left and right and they are linked to Russian president (again, it is not difficult to figure out who is this character built on). This is so exaggerated it is outright ridiculous.

Reason CIA is involved? Well this baddy Russian seeks the famous Amber Room that Nazis stole from Russia. And if he finds it he would be fulfilling promise that he made to "poor masses of Russia" and this will make him a superpower leader bent on restoring former USSR. Again, retarted to a maximum, but, oh irony, this seems to be very much inline with the way West's politics think (or at least leave an impression of same) so, from that perspective, this even sounds relatively realistic as casus belli.

To sum it up - CIA gets involved on the basis of "what if", no investigation, no actual intelligence, no indicators, just trust-me-blink-blink..... to be blunt, stupid as f***k, especially considering losses.

There are more moronic things here, but I cannot write them up, it would take several pages.
Book is sooooo bad, it is incredible. I finished it because I wanted to see this tragedy to the end, since I already started it.

I can only say, do yourself a favor and skip it. show less

Ok bus trip book. Little unbelievable plot in some spots but premise is fun. Characters are little light in development but adequate. Spies, Nazis, treasure, CIA, got the lot.