Baskerville Book Reviews

I’ll start off with what I dislike about this novel. The green-eyed menace returns. Those of us with green eyes are about 2% of the world’s population. So why is it that seemingly 80% of fiction seems to feature somebody with green eyes? Listen to or read 10 fiction novels and chances are, there will be a green-eyed character. They’re the ONLY ones whose eye color is even brought up most of the time. At one point in this story, the characters spot a green-eyed man and repeatedly bring up his eye color, as if nothing else about him is noteworthy. How goddamn good does your eyesight have to be to see the eye color of some stranger quickly walking down the street?

That all being said, the rest of this book was fantastic. I’ve listened to it nearly twice in three days and it’s very well done. The stakes are high, and the pacing feels well done. It really feels as if the protagonists are “up against it”. There was one moment when Clemmie, whose name I totally knew and didn’t have to look at the summary for, recruits her old colleagues. It reminded me of a heist setup, which made me laugh. It reminded me of a scene from the show Rick and Morty where all of the heist recruits say “You son of a bitch, I’m in.”, ’cause that’s pretty much how it went down.

The author didn’t tell me this was a sequel, it’s not listed as one on Goodreads or Audible. I bring this up because it feels like a sequel. What’s-her-name’s colleagues all bring up past jobs they did together, past tortures they’d endured. They clearly all have chemistry and have worked together. At one point, somebody is talking to protagonist whose name I can remember, and apologizes, it came off like she had a previous ear injury that caused her pain (I can relate). All of the dialogue in this book implies it’s a sequel. I guess that’s one way to do world-building if it’s not. Just repeatedly talk about situations that could be their own book. It got me to look deeper than I would have normally.

This is a very character and plot-driven story. Normally, I can get through an entire book and not know a single character’s name. Sometimes I can listen to a novel twice and still not be able to remember a single character’s name….. People aren’t exciting, memorable, or noteworthy to me. This book is one of those rare exceptions. The characters don’t feel like cardboard cutouts to me. They have depth and personalities that extend past the current plot contrivance. One of the characters is talking to a presit and finds religion. His co-workers/friends all give him shit about it, making just the worst dad jokes about it I’ve ever heard. The scenes between him and the prest offer little to the overall story but offer a great deal as far as character development is concerned.

One of the things I noticed while listening to the book; the author seemed to be exceptionally descriptive. There were a few times where he’d describe the scene as the characters were entering it. Almost like a play or a movie script. Overall, the entire novel was easy to follow. Not only was it well written, but I was also always able to easily picture what was going on in scenes.

this story reminded me a lot of Blue Madagascar by Andrew Kaplan. I don’t read a lot of international espionage novels, though I do read a lot of thrillers. This was easily one of the better thrillers I listened to/read. I had to give it a second listen because I wanted to make sure I covered everything I wanted to say about this incredible novel.

The narrator did a fantastic job. Not just at bringing the characters to life, but at doing male voices. Oftentimes, female narrators doing male voices are incredibly lacking. I never had trouble telling who was speaking, lines never felt like she was trying too hard to do a male voice. The overall audio production was excellent.

NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.

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