Customer Reviews

The Fourth Perimeter

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I was a little disappointed in this latest from Tim Green. It was a little dry and not highly believable.

Kurt Ford is an ex Secret Service agent that used to protect Carter and Reagan. He is now a billionaire and founder of Safe-Tech, a very successful high-tech company. When his son, also a Secret Service agent, is found with a bullet in his head, Kurt is absolutely devastated. The police believe it was suicide and don't intend to put any time in on the investigation. Kurt knows for a fact it was murder. He goes to an acquaintance of his who is working for the Secret Service and tries to get his help in getting information (This friend is also the man whom Kurt did not want working for him in his new company). With information this man gives him, Kurt is convinced that the president is responsible for his son's death. So Kurt decides to kill the president.

While a lot of the book deals with the emotional issues between Kurt and his fiancé, brought on by his son's death, some of the story deals in suspense. I felt the story was too predictable. From the beginning I knew who was behind the murders and that made the whole story frustrating. Kurt's gullibility didn't help. I've read all Tim Green's books and this is my least favorite...

The author has created an interesting, intriguing storyline. The action and drama sustain a decent pace. It's unfortunate that a fair amount of dialogue and supporting descriptions of characters' expressions and reactions read like the work of a writer still considerably unskilled at creating characters with credible words and behaviors. Some of the metaphors used to dramatize the story's actions were simply silly instead of serious.

I kept hoping it would get better - perhaps the characters would develop... perhaps there was a great twist in the plot. No such luck. The story is weak, the characters weaker and the "twist" was laughable!

If you really want to read it, get a copy from your local library and save your money for a really good book!

I grabbed this book at an airport when I'd run out of reading material. In a sea of thrillers I grabbed this one because the premise was interesting. It's the first novel I've read by Tim Green.

I'd say the author has good ideas and he tries to add depth to his characters, but his writing style is not very good. I admit I like Jane Austen, so my demands are high, but his prose is often bland and occasionally clunky. For example: "With a razor, he slashed them open one by one to reveal an ensemble of underwater equipment, all of which was midnight blue and smelling of fresh paint. He had known exactly what he needed and ordered everything over the Internet in a matter of a few hours. Even though he could have any number of people who worked for him around the house unpack the gear, Kurt had given every one of them including Clara the day off." Clunk.

I'm notoriously bad at figuring out mysteries and thrillers, but I got this one right away. There weren't many surprises, though there were good ideas. My impression is that this would be a great second draft, but it is not a novel yet. Maybe Green needs a different editor.

It's the first novel I've read by Tim Green. I don't feel a great urge to read another, though other reviewers suggest his other books are better, and I might pick up one based on the author's interest in his characters and his ideas, but I'd rank this effort as only average.

There isn't much "rooting interest" in this book. The main character, Kurt Ford, is (A) simplistically drawn (he has only one thing he cares about), (B) morally suspect (his only response to grief and trauma is a desire to kill people), and, worst of all, (C) kind of stupid: He has unlimited resources, but it never occurs to him to use some of them to investigate a little further before hatching his elaborate revenge plot. Thus, despite supposedly being both a crack former Secret Service agent and a high-tech enterpreneurial genius, he all too easily becomes a patsy for the bad guys. Likewise his girlfriend, supposedly a strong-willed executive, is reduced to being mostly his "enabler." Finally, the underlying political issue supposedly driving events is hugely implausible: An internet tax may or may not be a good idea, but it's not the kind of history-making issue on which the fate of the Republic will depend. On the plus side, the plot moves along reasonably briskly (except for a long, basically irrelevant section about the wife's near-affair with another man), and there are a few good lines. But when the characters are people you wouldn't want to spend much time with in real life, it's hard to feel satisfied at having spent time with them in the book.

What a bore! Green's writing was too simplistic, the plot was too predictable, and the characters were one-dimensional. Because of these faults, I found it really hard to remain interested in following what the main character, Kurt Ford, was planning in avenging his son's death, even if this meant to kill the President of the U.S.
If you want to read a good intriguing book with a strong story plot and character development, try the classics from Daniel Silva (The Unlikely Spy) or Ken Follett (The Eye of the Needle).

It seemed an intriguing premise--a guy so hell-bent on avenging his son's apparent murder that he's ready to assassinate the president. But Green's clumsy prose, shallow character portrayals, and use of gratuitous details make for a deeply unsatisfying book. It is difficult to feel an iota of sympathy for any of the characters (except maybe one poor sensitive oaf who, along with so many, ends up murdered). It's even more difficult to find an ounce of plausibility in the story itself. Oh well.

The copy of this book I read was printed on nice paper. The paper has far more substance than any of the characters in this book (they scarcely merit the name `characters'; shadows, silhouettes, paper cutouts). They just don't come across as real people. The author cavorts with their personalities as if he were yanking marionettes to be pulled in any which way. The lead character, Kurt Ford, had a gift `with people. He could read them.' Then we are told that Ford also did not feel comfortable chatting with people. Sorry, doesn't work that way. Jill is a totally unbelievable mass of wet clay who flows into whatever shape the author's whim requires. Jeremiah may weigh three hundred pounds, but he is entirely unsubstantial.

The dialogue is wooden and contrived. Here is a genuine quote from page 3, I swear I did not make this up: "My God, I love you so much," he said with quiet urgency.... "Oh, I love you too," she said fervently. "Kurt, I love you so much." The author must have toiled for hours on that exchange, tightening up the sentences and twiddling with the rhythms.

After that turgid passage, I kept reading mainly to see how badly the author could write. I was not disappointed. The plot has even less depth than the characters or the dialogue. An internet tax? There is no reasonable explanation for the bad guy's murdering the other two Secret Service agents, other than a feeble attempt to build suspense. Is the Secret Service so dense that nobody would remark on the death of three agents?

I was originally going to give this two stars for effort, but demoted him to one when the bad guy convinces two nasties to assassinate the President on the grounds that the President was preparing to sell military and intelligence secrets to the Chinese. Those nasties may have watermelons instead of brains, but if that's the best Green can do, he had really better keep his daytime job.

To read the plot summary on the back of this book, you'd think you were going to read an exciting political thriller. But, as the old saying goes, you should not judge a book by its cover. This is a tepid action novel that may be a fast read, but has little else to recommend it.

Kurt Ford is an ex-Secret Service agent who is now a billionaire entrepeneur. His son, a Secret Service agent himself, is killed in an act that is apparently suicide but quickly is revealed to be murder. When Ford learns the President himself apparently ordered the killing, he decides that the only appropriate revenge is assassination.

It sounds intriguing enough, but there are flaws aplenty. For one thing, there is actually not all that much action. The middle two hundred pages focus primarily on Ford's assassination plotting, with little else really going on. Ford himself isn't all that bright, accepting the premise that the President is guilty after relatively little investigation. In fact, there are no interesting characters in the whole book; the villains are bland, the President is a relatively apolitical standard politician, and Ford himself is hardly worth turning the pages.

The plotting is equally subpar. The prologue, which lets the reader know that the son is definitely a murder victim, should have been eliminated to add a little mystery to the story. But Green apparently assumes the worst in the reader: besides the prologue problem, it takes the reader very little time to know exactly who the bad guy is, and Green doesn't allow a single plot twist that can't be seen a mile away. Even the epilogue rattles under the weight of cliches.

I have no idea if this work is typical of Green or not; I doubt very much I'll take a chance with another of his books. If you like a good political thriller, look elsewhere; you won't find it here.

New York attorney & former football player Tim Green has written another top-notch thriller. The Fourth Perimeter has a different style & theme from the author's previous football themed works like Outlaws & Redzone that featured the spunky attorney Madison McCall. After delivering his best legal thriller to date, in the marvelous The Letter of the Law, Green does a volte-face & delivers a thriller that does not have an ounce of legalese in it - affirming the age-old maxim, "you never ever can predict a lawyer."

Kurt Ford, a former Secret Service agent & CEO of a successful computer software company, is planning on remarrying. On the day he proposes to his fiancée, Ford receives news that his one & only son Collin, has committed suicide.

Collin, also a Secret Service agent, was assigned the task of protecting the President of the United States. Ford is devastated, until a close friend & former colleague, David Claiborne, a top official in the Presidential Protection Division, informs him that Ford's son had witness a something secret involving the President, & Collin's death was really a brutal & well planned murder.

Revenge boils in Ford, & he takes on the almost impossible task of assassinating the President. He has one thing to his advantage, as a former agent he is privy to how the system works & he knows the loopholes to break the fourth perimeter - the innermost circle in the four rings of protection surrounding a President. What follows is an exciting, page-turning journey of Ford's quest for revenge, culminating in a nail-biting, yet expected finish.

The Fourth Perimeter is a light read. As a whodunit, it falls short, however as a whydunit it is excellent. The work combines the better elements of Jeffrey Archer's The Eleventh Commandment & David Baldacci's Absolute Power.

As in the author's previous works, the narration is taut & action packed & there is never a dull moment, however, when compared to his superb The Letter of the Law, this Green novel is a trifle disappointing, as readers have come to expect much more from this author.

In the end I must say that The Fourth Perimeter is a light & easy read & for an enjoyable evening, it is recommended.