Rating: 
Summary: Alias wanna be
Review: To compare this novel to the Da Vinci Code, does a great disservice to Mr. Brown. I wanted to like this book, I truly did, but reading this book was a labor in of itself. The best part of reading this novel was when I finished it. That way I could move on to something more enjoyable. The author, Ms Silbert, believes she is more skilled than she is. The book lacked any true suspense and the ended was extremely anticlimactic. My major beef with this book is that she describes how the 1600 century spy novel that is found is all in code, yet she gives no examples of what they were and how to break them. I believe if Mr. Brown were to have written this book, he would have shown one of the pages of the coded book and how the code was broken. Ms Silbert did none of this. She instead tried to focus on how clever and stylist her characters are. Give me substance over style any day. It would appear that they are going to try to make a series out of the main character. I'd rather watch Alias on TV then read another book in this series. At least the TV show doesn't try to be more intelligent than it is.
Rating: 
Summary: PI parlays experience into excellent thriller!
Review: When I heard the author on the radio talking about her real-life experiences as a PI, her ex-CIA boss, and U.S. attorney father, I decided to give this book a try. I like authenticity, and too many thrillers are painfully over the top...you know, so implausible you roll your eyes. But this one, wow! I loved it. It's got a very authentic, informative feel, but is also inventive, fresh and exciting. Kept me up till dawn!The Marlowe chapters come to life so vividly. Really enjoyed Marlowe's banter with Tom Walsingham and the tavern whore, as well as the way he was inspired to start writing "Hero and Leander." And learning so much about the Elizabethan underworld--spies and spymasters, con men, codes, ciphers, etc was fascinating. Very cool how the present day chapters paralleled those set in the past--you get to see Marlowe and Kate get their espionage assignments one after the other, begin them, get in danger, etc, in alternating chapters. And I loved Kate, found her more likable and believable than other mystery/spy heroines I've come across, probably because she's modeled so closely on the author... Whose ex-CIA boss endorsed the book so glowingly that I trust the PI know-how, international intrigue, and intelligence aspects, which made the whole reading experience much more fun for me. Lastly, I was thrilled that the endings to both storylines were unpredictable, clever and witty--for me, totally satisfying. Which is so rare in this genre. And when you're done, definitely stick around for the author's note. It tells you how most events from the sixteenth-century chapters are based on historical evidence, and explains something really interesting about the structure of the novel.
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