Sword of God

This was surprisingly good considering it is yet another of the surge of books mixing Middle Eastern politics and at least the implication of ancient secrets.

Kuzneski can write without cliche when he wants to, but when he does cliche, wow does he go to town - the 'machismo' of the hero and his sidekick (who kept reminding me of the Lone Ranger and Tonto for some reason) in the early chapters was just OTT.

But, despite this caveat and the usual necessary unbelievabilities which are part of this genre, this is worth reading because the investigation of the dark side of the war on terror is spot-on.

Enough of interest to make it a good light read thriller: it would also make a good Denzel Washington-type movie, with a bit of tweaking show more (unfortunately, because of the subject matter, this film will never be made ... read it to work out why). show less

Another very good helping in the Jonathon Payne and David Jones series. This book rotates around a military incident in South Korea involving someone Payne and Jones trained when they were in the MANIACs, and a potential terrorist incident. I love the humour in this series between Payne and Jones, which reminds me of Myron Bolitar in the Harlan Coben books - both series make me regularly laugh out loud! The historical backdrop is always seamlessly woven in without affecting the story, something in my opinion Dan Brown could learn from. I have read a number of books in this series (not necessarily in order) and I very much look forward to picking up the next one! 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 for Shelfari.

Great, fast-paced action thriller, with a hint of good humour. The book follows several different narratives, unrelated at first but brings them gradually together in a skillful fashion - the tie-ins between them are revealed to the reader in a pleasingly satisfying manner. The underlying plot is original and interesting.

This is my second Kuzneski book and he's quickly becoming one of my favourite authors - Payne and Jones are very likeable characters who have really been given a character of their own.

I have finally struggled through to the end of this book but I have to admit that at least the last 150 pages (yes that's close to half of it) was to find out if it would EVER get round to the point of the plot-line which is advertised on the back of the book. I have not read James Patterson's "Murder Club" books but if he really thinks that "Kuzneski's writing has raw power" and was referring to this book (which admittedly he may not have been), I'm not going to risk it. It is possible that the author has deliberately littered his pages with cliched phrases, derivative characters and clunky exposition because he thinks it appropriate for the "blockbuster" style he is trying to write but frankly that is an insult to both "blockbuster" show more writers and their audience.

I am no snob when it comes to novels - years producing audio books from all kinds of novels knocked any potential for that out of me. When I read a novel I read for the same reason I watch a film or a television series - to be immersed in a story. If the quality of the writing isn't perfect but the story is engaging then that's fine by me - goodness knows there are many "well written" or "literary" novels which will put you to sleep! Give me a good story over good grammar any day. Unfortunately, Sword of God gives you neither.

REVIEW
Overall Score: 17/60
Story: 2/10 - derivative
Structure: 4/10 - all over the place, too much left undone or unsatisfactorily tied up.
Dialogue: 3/10 - cliche but not unbelievable for the characters, particularly bad when used for exposition
Characters: 3/10 - stereotypes (and I don't mean archetypes, just stereotypes)
Descriptive style: 4/10 - cliched phrasing, lack of flow mostly due to badly inserted exposition
Exposition handling: 1/10 - clunky, incongruous, often resorts to straight lecturing, inconsistently breaks rules of POV in 3rd person intimate show less

This is the third book in the Payne and Jones series and the third one I've read. It's the best so far. I can feel this author growing in his confidence with this series.

Payne and Jones, ex-special forces, are called in to help deal with an protege of theirs that has disappeared. The plot includes plans for a terrorist attack on Mecca. The action is very violent so if you don't like blood, this isn't the book for you. On the other hand, the characters work well together and have a true friendship. In the context of the story, the violence didn't bother me.

Compared to the first two stories in this series, the dialogue was much less stilted and stiff, much more natural. I felt the plot lines in the first two were gimmicky but this one show more didn't feel that way at all. A huge improvement all around in my opinion. I'm enjoying this series more and more as it goes along. show less

Sword is the third book by Kuzneski featuring the two US military characters, Payne and Jones and is a standalone story, with little connectivity between previous volumes. The author is clearly becoming more confident with the characters as the series progresses, creating more banter between the likeable protagonists. Kuzneski has adapted his writing style to feature less of the pointless cliffhangers than marred his previous book. The distracting feature of Sword of God is that for most of the book it feels like two distinctly separate plots. That said, this approach does keep the reader keen to see how they ultimately converge. In fairness, the Sword of God title is although a minor point in the story, almost added to ride the Dan show more Brown coattails, and as a result Sword of God is less religious-thriller than you would think. To explain the genre would be to spoil the suspense, yet the fact remains that Sword is a fascinating read, even though it's rather simple and derivative. show less

Sword of God starts well and continues to build momentum throughout the story. It's written in an open style that makes it easy to read. It's a little predictable and I think the author could have developed the mystery and the back story a bit more. That being said it was an enjoyable read.