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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome, September 25, 2005
A superb thriller for the dangerous times we live in which reminded me a lot of Tom Clancy's THE SUM OF ALL FEARS - the only difference here is that it features a British MI6 agent as the hero - Paul Richter. After the covering up of a murder of a fellow agent in Moscow by rogue ex-KGB agents, Richter gets a hunch that something is not right. As he makes enquiries, he discovers something mostrous is about to happen - a disaffected Russia has allied with Arab terrorists loyal to Bin Laden - who have motives of their own - and set in motion a plot to explode nuclear devices in Western cities and force a shift in the balance of world politics! Sounds familiar? It is better than what you would expect though. The locations are well researched - got a kick out of the Davey Crockett Ranch sequence at Eurodisney as we have stayed there a few times - London, France, Saudi Arabia, Moscow are all well described to the point you feel you are there. Lots of twists along the way, and you also get SAS plot involvement that will please special forces aficionados. The narrative is also easy to read, and although it took a while to get going, it was a great vacation read and I eagerly look forward to future offerings from this author.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read., January 22, 2009
This review is from: Overkill (Paul Richter) (Paperback)
I really liked this book from James Barrington. I found it interesting reading and was definitely a fan of his main character. I found the style of writing quite engaging and his humor to my liking. Hopefully he will have more books out in the near future. If you like Mitch Rapp or Scott Harvath you will definitely enjoy this book.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Overkill- James Barrington, June 15, 2010
I was torn between 2 and 3 stars for this book. I didn't dislike. But then, I didn't exaclty like it either.
I tend to like thrillers packed with detailed descriptions and large info dumps, that non-fans would probably consider dry and boring. I love Dale Brown and Frederick Forsyth novels. But James Barrington doesn't quite pull it off, and the result is an extremely long novel that's just dry and boring. The storyline and scenarios are authentic and the plot follows a realistic sequence of events, but the Russians as bad guys and Arab terrorists with nukes has all been done before. The characters are completely lifeless and have no personalities. The dialogue is frequently tedious and consists of just more large dumps of information, like the rest of the narrative, but within quotation marks. or the characters spend lots of pages discussing and analyzing what has happened, what it might mean, and what might happen next, and what they should do about it. It really doesn't make for fast paced, entertaining reading. On the plus side, Barrington does write action sequences well, especially the early scene in the skies over Russia and the action involving British, French, and Russian special forces teams. And Overkill is an authentic, realisitc depiction of espionage and military services, so it is better in that regard to all the hack thriller writers that are active now.
All of these same problems (and positives)appply to Barrington's other novels, but his others at least have a more original plot.
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