What is this about: Will Rhodes’ journey towards becoming a spy. Problem is, the journey’s boring and I’m marking this DNF, and this review is about why.
What else is this about: A global conspiracy and how Will ties into it.
Should you read it: If you’ve read Pavone before, you’ll be more certain of the payoff here, but I’m not and I’m crushed.
Stars: DNF. I got sucked in by a killer blurb…
Blurb: A pulse-racing international thriller from the New York Timesbestselling author of The Expats and The Accident
It’s 3:00am. Do you know where your husband is?
Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he’s living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Soon Will’s bad choices—and dark secrets—take him across Europe, from a chateau in Bordeaux to a midnight raid on a Paris mansion, from a dive bar in Dublin to a mega-yacht in the Mediterranean and an isolated cabin perched on the rugged cliffs of Iceland. As he’s drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications—and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all.
It’s 3:00am. Your husband has just become a spy.
This is a case of becareful what you wish for, you just might get it: sorry to be such a downer, Netgalley! I was absolutely ecstatic when my “wish was granted” on Netgalley and I got a chance to read this.
And then I started and bit by bit, chapter by chapter, I felt my excitement get crushed as the book progressed.
So, Will. As the book begins, he’s living the life that you probably thought was once fantastic: he’s a travel writer for a respected magazine. By accounts, he’s held in high esteem because of his magazine and he gets invited to all the right places and meets the right people. But, at home he and his wife are struggling under the weight of debt and the realisation that their marriage isn’t working.
Then, Will finding himself falling for a woman on one of his trips — one that ends up bringing him into the CIA. And so begins his indoctrination into all things CIA.
I wish that was as interesting as that sounds, only it’s not. It’s boring. It’s also book-ended by what I imagine are the elements of the larger conspiracy as Will’s learns all the skills he needs to be part of the CIA. The overall feel is something disjointed, that I imagine comes together later.
Will. Will though, wasn’t strong enough to hold my interest and if nothing else, I’d hope he was. The choice to start him off learning about the CIA was a bad one because it dragged the narrative down big time. Second, he cheats on his wife and gets caught up in a web of deceit and out of his depth. I gather I’m supposed to feel some sort of sympathy for him, but I don’t see any reason to be.
I wonder too why Chloe, his wife, is part of this story because at about 45% (Kindle) in, they’re so broken, I can’t imagine how they’d come back together. I rather imagine given the stellar reviews this author has got in all his works, if she’s there, she has a purpose… I was just too bored and too uncaring of anything that happens to Will to continue reading.
I’ll probably try this author’s other work, but with less glee than I did with this one.
Ugh, even I feel dissappointed BECAUSE IT SOUNDS SO GOOD. Just noooooooooooooooooo. I feel sorry for the wife though, so do hope she had a bigger partto do with it later on, but he honestly seems like an ass, and even if the plot was really interesting, I still wouldn’t get into it if the MC is boring as. 🙁
I was on pins and needles wanting this book, Kirsty. The blurb was all sorts of awesome, and pretty much all the author’s books had blurbs that made go: I WANT NOW. Sighs. I think Will was my biggest issue — he started off bad, and I didn’t see any attempt to start redeeming him by the time I lost interest so yeah. Boring and unlikeable about covers Will. Even if your protagonist is supposed to be the bad guy or whatever, I need a sliver of something to hold on to to be able to see a book through to the end.