I didn't realise till halfway through the book - it's a fast read, and you could reach halfway in an evening - that I'd read it before back in high school a couple of decades back. I reached a scene (a minor character's anecdote) that had struck me as bizarre then and was even weirder this time around. And not weird in a good way. It still didn't make much dramatic sense, even though it was the most'disturbing' (numerous readers' critiques on Amazon describe the novel thus) scene in the book. As I had the first time, I merely found myself thinking, "What the hell was this scene included for? Who is this guy?"Actually, coming from an Eng Lit professor, I was astounded on this read by the sheer ineptitude of much of the grammar and syntax. There was a lot of sloppy wordplay, WAY too many adverbs of manner, some of them very clunky, and an unbelievably lazy reliance on participles as an 'action' device. This is partly what makes it such a page-turner: Morrell is a fan of the short sentence and the -ing verb ("and he was running, sweating, shouting, screaming as he arrived, panting, gasping for air, at the house..." - not a real quote, but close to it.Yet his characters are indifferently constructed, even the protagonist (who cares when the wife and daughter suffer? I didn't), the dialogue (especially the wife's and the girl's) wooden, the plotting is linear (no problem with that but it lacked the drive and climax that would allow this very simple story to satisfy) and unsurprising, and it's all ultimately unconvincing. His house in the suburbs is attacked several times in a short period even after his child has been poisoned - no media interest, no decent police protection? No mention of parents, family, friends who might be affected by such a violent, disturbing attack on a child. Similarly when the daughter is attacked at her school - no media interest? And that ghost town scene? Come on. Straight out of the Brady Bunch episode, the numerous buildings still standing and perfectly functional, bottles in the saloon, even 'town records' surviving, but NOBODY KNOWS THIS PLACE IS THERE?! (Except one grizzled and perplexing old-timer). Again, doesn't Bourne have any family or colleagues wondering where he's got to? The snow survival scenes are unconvincing at best - many months sheltering in snow caves and the odd shack in freezing winter, sleeping on the snow in a sleeping bag with no ground sheet. The wife and daughter have no trouble mastering horse-riding and are able to flee assassins on their heroic mounts. This could have been a great survival tale if there was a tad more plausibility.And the ending? Such a cop out. The enemy was wasted - Kess could have been a great villain but is hardly mentioned until near the end. His henchmen are cutouts - even as Bourne tortures and kills one of them, the victim isn't even described - age, hair colour, nothing. Overall, a great disappointment from the author famous for 'Rambo'. I read 'First Blood' way back then as well. At the time I recall enjoying it, but maybe a return visit as an adult will force another reappraisal...
