|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Jennifer March is a New York attorney whose life was torn apart two years previously when her family was destroyed. Her father disappeared after that fateful night. Dark secrets in his past make her wonder whether he was responsible for the death of her mother and leaving her brother Bobby badly disabled. So when her father's body is found frozen in a remote glacier in the Swiss Alps, Jennifer goes off in search of answers. But she soon finds herself the target of vicious killers who will stop at nothing until she is dead. She's trailed by her friend Mark Ryan, a New York policeman, who is pressed into following her by CIA agent Jack Kelso, who warns him that Jennifer's life is at risk. And Jennifer hooks up with PI Frank McCaul, whose son Chuck was murdered after finding the body in the glacier. WEB OF DECEIT is a competent, swift read which never quite lives up to its scary first few pages where Jennifer is being attacked by a masked intruder. It hurtles round Switzerland, Italy and the US at breakneck pace as those on Jennifer's trail attempt to stop her discovering the story behind her father's death. The book teeters on the edge of being One Damn Thing After Another, that curse of thriller writing. There are some genuinely frightening scenes in a remote monastery which had me setting aside the book until daylight. But otherwise author Glenn Meade does signal his intentions a little too heavily. Meade is Irish and appears to be able to write American, although I'm not the best person to spot if there are any wobbles. He can plot competently, and includes the obligatory switchback ending, although his characterisation is a touch too thin. It doesn't help that the story is told from the point of view of at least half a dozen different characters in the space of 400 pages. There's too much of the helpless, passive female about Jennifer for her to be that interesting a leading character, whilst the baddies are woefully under-drawn. My personal favourite was Long Beach cop Lou Garuda, a mate of Ryan's, who has difficulty keeping his flies zipped, but proves to be a terrier in search of the truth. Give him a book of his own!
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, August 2005
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
