Michael Best

This tale worked for me. Frank Guidry losing his heart over Charlotte was just credible enough. The pacing of the story-telling excellent.

Possibly 2.5.

This is a very easy read (if occasionally a touch graphic). I began by liking the blackly humorous style and the political slant. Sadly, the plot was shallow, increasingly incredible and the characters rather heavily stereotypical.

There is nothing about it to make we want to buy another in the series.

I feel this is a generous 3. The writing is basic. The storyline is ok, even if Condor does turn quickly from book reading geek to vengeful assassin.

I liked this even more than the The Devil in the Marshalsea.

She tells a tale well.

It took me a while to get in to this but I enjoyed it enough to want to seek out the next in the series.

A nice opening line. Rather downhill from there on for me.

As a short story, and a little less of the Wizard of Oz, it may have been more effective.

(My ebook copy had rather too many spelling and grammatical errors too).

For me, something about this book didn't quite work. It is not a bad book, but it is not one I could recommend.

As with the first book in the series, I liked much of what this book offers but there are just too many damn shoot-outs. Oh, for a bit more sleuthing and a little less gun play.

In truth a 3.5.

It is not quite the book I was expecting: it begins oddly, for me, with much talk of John Constable painting clouds; however, I felt it improved thereafter, though it became increasingly a mini biography of Fitzroy.

International readers should be prepared for a very UK focused tale.

My second Maigret and I fear Simenon's style may not be for me.

I did enjoy this book, though I could understand if another reader might find it a little dry.

My biggest gripe, and this is not about the story itself, was the sense of self-satisfaction coming from the author.

Another short, sharp Dard thriller.

Not the best of the Icelandic noir writers I have read, but I enjoyed this first novel enough that I will read the second. (My enjoyment was perhaps helped by that fact I have visited the Icelandic town where the tale is set - albeit in the Summer).

Coming to this from only knowing the film The Pride and the Passion, the book was not what I was expecting. (Essentially the film and the book have only the gun itself and Spain in common).

I enjoyed the book, though the tale was told in a very matter of fact, passionless way - but I have come to expect and accept this from Forester.

Having read the first two Mock books, I find myself incredibly disappointed by this one. What I had found strange but beguiling in their style has become annoyingly arch in this one - the plot is ludicrous, characters behave in such bizarre fashion I wondered if the author was having a joke to see how far he could go before the reader threw in the towel.

Really a 2.5. It started off well as a police procedural, with the central character a Catholic RUC officer living in a Protestant part of Belfast at the height of the troubles. However, the last third of the book turns in to a gun blazing thriller genre, which I found far less satisfying.

Probably a 3.5.

Reading it in 2016, it can't help but feel dated in some respects, but he is very much a post war successor to Eric Ambler - once he gets the plot in to gear, he just sweeps you along.

I really liked the first book in the series, the second was ok but this book I thought to be really rather poor. Substantially over heavy on the messages, with just about every character weighed down by the their guilt for past decisions, or wrecked by the behaviours of others in the past. A rather uninteresting book.

Probably it would have helped if I had been to Rome. I felt the author assumed every reader would have.

At times engrossing, at others verging on tedious.

Barely a 2.

This was something of a slog to read. It is a strange mix of wry, sardonic humour and a very shallow thriller. The humour wore thin so quickly that for most of the novel I just wanted the main character to get killed off to shut him up!

For me a 2.5. It all felt a bit heavy handed, perhaps because it is a first book.

Ok, so I knew this was advertised as the first in a series, but I did not expect that even as I was reading I would be so aware of plot points which I knew were not going to be answered within the book. There is an awful lot of setting things up for later books which is something I dislike immensely and against which I react by refusing to buy anymore in the series.

It was decently written, if not exactly groundbreaking.

The universe created seemed somewhat strange - for instance, faster than light travel but cars with squealing tyres?

The book needs more proof-reading, with grammatical/typo errors and, more annoyingly, several references to actions or words by character A when it meant character B.

Over-stylised, plodding writing; perhaps, the translation may not be helping.

An enjoyable sci-fi thriller. A bit more “shoot-em” action as the plot progresses than I wanted, which moved it from a 4 to a 3 star. That said, I think I will look for the next in the series.

Although I have given this 3 stars, the truth is it took me quite a long time to get through the book and I am not tempted to read any more in the series. It is decently written, if a little cliched, but it never grabbed or enthralled me.