Rating: 
Summary: unbelievable thriller
Review: This is the first novel I have read by bestselling novelist Jeffrey Archer - and it will likely be the last. "The Eleventh Commandment" stretches credibility to such lengths that I lost all trust in the book. The first assault on credibility is the fact that the main character, Connor Fitzgerald, an assassin for the CIA, is a regular boy-scout kind of guy much admired for the content of his character as well as his chillingly efficient professional skill. Give me a break! Nice, normal guys, I don't think, go around murdering people in cold blood as a profession. The author is clever at setting a good scene with authentic details and he might have sold me on the notion that nice guys can be assassins - but he couldn't sell me a wholesale lot of plot twists and turns which add up to implausibility. Connor is so smart and has so many friends that leap into the story to help him out at critical points that he outwits everyone - the CIA, the Russians, the Russian Mafya (yes, it's spelled that way) -- evading capture and execution and effortlessly finding opportunities to stalk heavily-guarded world leaders. Thus, about half-way through the book, I began to lose interest in the story and from then on I just turned pages quickly to get to the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good JA's others, but 3 *s for JA beats almost anyone
Review: This latest offering is a disappointment when compared to Archer's other books, but still a quick and interesting read. Surprisingly, and disappointingly, given that the author is Jeffrey Archer, the twists and turns of the plot are predictable. Also, being from the Washington DC area, where some of the action of the book takes place, I wished Archer had done a better job with his research. This book screams WAIT TO YOU SEE THE MOVIE! Maybe Archer is falling into the regrettable habit of many of the more popular writers of writing a book to a movie?
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