Spoiler Alert! The guy that gets run over in the beginning.... is SATAN! Yikes. What the hell was that about? Did T. Jefferson Parker just run out of ideas and instead of a decent plot figured he'd just wing it? Add that to a few stereotypic AFT agents, some macho yammering, a little bit of christian posturing, and some weird bad guy first person shift in POV for who the hell knows why... and you got...? I don't know. This shit really sells? ...boring The book was somewhat interesting at the start, got terribly dull in the middle and started to get interesting towards the end. But, IN the end, it petered out. I was not impressed. I found myself wishing the book would hurry up and end. After they get Holdstock back for the second time, that should have been it.I don't really care for Parker's prose. His writing is dull and brutish. The book seems like the work of a self-published writer with no editor. I don't like the viewpoint switch. I didn't care about the characters; I didn't find anything endearing or fascinating about Hood. I also wish Parker could have let us know, somehow, that the Hood novels need to be read in order--specifically--as this book seemed to rely on the reader having read the others. There was no reason for Holdstock to be kidnapped twice and Mike Finnegan's mysterious character was too out of place for a novel based in reality. I found him to be interesting, but he didn't fit.I just wasn't into it. I like crime novels and I'm okay with the sense that the bad guys won because that's more realistic. But, it just seemed like the book either wasn't building up at all, or that it built up to nothing when something finally happened.I do not intend to read anymore Hood novels. I have one older Parker book I picked up at the Good Will and will eventually read it. That will be the second chance.
What do You think about Iron River (2010)?
Even if this is fiction it provides an incite into the reality of gun running in the US.
—toffi
A very fun read. In this one, the good guys are outsmarted.
—baconbitzz17
