James Patterson has teamed up with Mark Sullivan to bring out the latest novel in the Private series Private Games. The backdrop the upcoming London Olympics, and the London arm of the security firm Private has been contracted to protect the organisers, officials and participants.
From the outset it becomes clear that there is a mad man working to disrupt the games. Disrupt is a casual term for what the mad ‘Cronus’ intends to do to the London Olympics. He plans to kill competitors, officials, poison people and bomb the venue. The chief of the London Private, Peter Knight is the one charged with the job of stopping the ‘Cronus’.
The characters are well developed, the story is fast paced and there are emotional tangles, all well weaved in. Still there is something lacking in the novel, a wholesomeness of an experience is missing. Due to that ‘something’ missing, the book is not compelling enough to make one read on through the night.
I was loaned the novel on Monday morning and it took me 3 days and nights, off and on, to finish it. That is not a mark of a gripping, enthralling, entertaining story. OTOH, the fact that I did not abandon the novel midway also testifies that the story is not a bad one. If it was, it would have been junked, as happened once before.
One more irritation is the latest trend for story tellers to break up the novel into small chapters. Would you believe that the story is split into 120 odd chapters in 432 (hardcover) pages? Which effectively translates to 3 pages per chapter.
Perhaps this is to make navigation and reading easier in digital, non-paper versions, but surely the hardcover and paperback editions could be organised differently for ease of old timers who read paper books?
My Thinking half tattles, ‘Maybe it is time the International Olympics Committee commissions a mystery or a romance novel or a comics (why not all 3), before every Olympics. The story could weave the events, the landmarks, the stadiums and the competitors and may become a spur for people to get interested in things which are only semi-Olympics related. Like I wondered what Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit was, and I am sure there are many who still haven’t heard about it.’
To which my Naughty half natters, ‘Yeah! And the comics would become a collectors edition to be flogged off for obscene amounts of money 50 years down the line.’
>:-)
From the outset it becomes clear that there is a mad man working to disrupt the games. Disrupt is a casual term for what the mad ‘Cronus’ intends to do to the London Olympics. He plans to kill competitors, officials, poison people and bomb the venue. The chief of the London Private, Peter Knight is the one charged with the job of stopping the ‘Cronus’.
The characters are well developed, the story is fast paced and there are emotional tangles, all well weaved in. Still there is something lacking in the novel, a wholesomeness of an experience is missing. Due to that ‘something’ missing, the book is not compelling enough to make one read on through the night.
I was loaned the novel on Monday morning and it took me 3 days and nights, off and on, to finish it. That is not a mark of a gripping, enthralling, entertaining story. OTOH, the fact that I did not abandon the novel midway also testifies that the story is not a bad one. If it was, it would have been junked, as happened once before.
One more irritation is the latest trend for story tellers to break up the novel into small chapters. Would you believe that the story is split into 120 odd chapters in 432 (hardcover) pages? Which effectively translates to 3 pages per chapter.
Perhaps this is to make navigation and reading easier in digital, non-paper versions, but surely the hardcover and paperback editions could be organised differently for ease of old timers who read paper books?
My Thinking half tattles, ‘Maybe it is time the International Olympics Committee commissions a mystery or a romance novel or a comics (why not all 3), before every Olympics. The story could weave the events, the landmarks, the stadiums and the competitors and may become a spur for people to get interested in things which are only semi-Olympics related. Like I wondered what Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit was, and I am sure there are many who still haven’t heard about it.’
To which my Naughty half natters, ‘Yeah! And the comics would become a collectors edition to be flogged off for obscene amounts of money 50 years down the line.’
>:-)
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