Official Secrets

Rating:
Summary: The first page grabbed me. The rest held me in suspense
Review: I don't know about all that fancy stuff the professional reviewers say, I just know I hated to put this book down even when I had to go to work. I kept wondering what would happen to Janice and Reath and how they'd solve this mystery and how many more people would be killed and whether Janice or Reath would be killed too. This is the first book I ever read that kept me worrying about what would happen next, even when I was at work or driving somewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Written by an insider, with the skills of a hack
Review: Sorry to be harsh, but this isn't a very good novel. It mostly suffers from two things 1. Clumsy characterization. The characters are barely sketched out and seem mostly there to dole out huge heaping lumps of amatuerish exposition. They do dumb things not out of human fraility but because the author needs to advance the plot. 2. The prose is purple and riddled with the most banal cliches like "wiry little man" and "lyric psalms" and describing sunshine on windows as the reflection of "orange energy". There are plenty of mawkish scenes, such as the scene of an IRA assasination being described as a place where children in their "Sunday best" cling to their parents who, boo-hoo, realize the Troubles, aye the Troubles are still with us.
If you're looking for an "insider" view of the ATF, look elsewhere.
Note: I am not a gun owner, or NRA member, or member of some ragtag Posse Comitatus type group who go out in the woods dressed in camoflauge bought at some dingy Army-Navy store and shoot at trees.