Customer Reviews

Lethal Risk

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really enjoyed this book. It grabs you early with action and interesting characters that are three dimensional, with real emotions that pull you in. It's a fast read, which makes for an unusual combination of good pace and good characters. Jack Harris is not your typical doctor, but rather is one who has pulled himself out of a tough background to be a doctor. He used to work on off-shore oil rigs, and has a tough side and some raw emotions that are very believable. Yet he has the compassion to stick his neck out for a runnaway girl, whose subsequent disappearance from a room streaked with blood gets Harris blamed for murder. The web he uncovers in trying to save himself and the girl is enough to make this reader sit up all night. I hope Jack Harris is in the next book!

You already know the plot, but what you should know is that WH Watford is a writer to watch! I read his first - MORTAL STRAIN -and loved it. When LETHAL RISK came out, I bought six and gave them to my mystery loving friends. This guy can write! Move over Robin Cook and Michael Palmer, Watford is on the loose. The characters are fully written and believable, the setting is wonderfully portrayed, and the action is non-stop. But wait..there's more! The plot has more twists and turns than I was ready for, and best of all, I was totally unprepared for the surprise ending. Now, I'm a mystery writer too...and Watford was so clever, I figured the villian wrong. How's that for a recommendation?

I'm not too sure how I felt about this book. It was a very fast read, and fairly well written, but I never really got into it. I didn't really "get" the characters, or feel for them too much...except for Jack, which was good, since he was the main character. For the most part, I felt the book was interesting enough...until it came to the end. Towards the end, I felt that the author didn't really know where he was going, and through plot twist after plot twist in, with the possible intention of throwing the reader off the track...of figuring out whether or not there was really a mystery, or whether it really got solved.
I was unsatisfied by the conclusion of the big conspiracy going on. I didn't feel like there was ever a "Oh!" moment where you think, I should have seen that. Nor did I think there was ever really a moment that the mystery was solved (to my liking). Finally, the whole "love interest" story was poorly done, in my opinion. For me, then, it is back to the now retold (over and over!) books of Michael Palmer. But I might give this author another chance.

I enjoyed reading this book, but I thought it really dragged in the middle. The "tough guy" scenes in the bar were not interesting to me. I have not finished the book yet, but I probably will read to the end.