Customer Reviews

The Protocol

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

 

 

"The Protocol" is a paint-by-numbers medical thriller, chock full of cliches. First there is your basic spunky heroine, Jennifer Rockhill, who is out to avenge her late husband's untimely demise at the hands of a malevolent and venal doctor. Then there is the inscrutable hunk, Matthew Pace, a former CIA operative who has become a cynical mercenary. That is, he is cynical until he meets Jennifer. He then becomes altruistic and sensitive. The plot deals with a breakthrough technique relating to cloning. This technique is worth big bucks, and many people are willing to kill to get their hands on this "protocol". Besides the killings, there are many mysterious events, especially people breaking into laboratories in the dead of night. Does our heroine achieve the satisfaction (i. e. revenge) that she so desperately wants? Will our spunky heroine and our sensitive hunk get married? Christofferson doesn't tie it all up in a neat package, but neither does she satisfactorily explain away the numerous plot holes, either. Skip this one.

On a browse to get a book to take on an out of town trip with me and since my favorite authors have not have new releases, I saw and purchased this book on a feeling of unsuredness. I am an avid reader of mystery/thriller/medical thriller novels but found this book to consistantly fall short of my reader expectations.

The reader can immediately get into the plot from the beginning but the writing style would get the reader going then run dead stop into pages of descriptive mumbo jumbo. I like a fast paced, cohesive plot that takes you on a ride through every twist and turn. To have pages of descriptive pages interspersed throughout the book, never got this aforementioned pace going.

Although the plot of biotechs, cloning and medical research would provide fodder for a fast pace medical thriller, this reader found alot of the characters to have non-plausible things written for them. One would be hard pressed to get a high positioned job, as an attorney, without verification of creditionals and resume. Originally, I bought into the employment physical but then towards the end of the book, found it unrealistic to have the type of physical that was requred of Ms. Rockhill. Most employee physicals, even for insurance, rarely would become as personal or medically required.

The characters were made into these strong thriller type characters but then became unrealistic both in character and attributes.

I somehow managed to get past the endless abrupt descriptive stoppings and read the book in 3 days but at times, it was a struggle to continue reading to finish the book as opposed to just putting it down and not finishing it.

I was sadly disappointed.

While the biotechnology industry, industrial espionage and the human organ transplant field are perfect fodder for a thriller, I didn't feel this book lived up to it's possibilities.

First off, the heroine gets hired as THE corporate lawyer by a huge biotech firm. She lies on her resume about her background and experience. And NO ONE bothers to check her background and references? Yeah right.

If you can get past that, the book then becomes a pretty good(if somewhat by-the-formula)read.

Until I got to the end and found the ending totally unsatisfying. Without giving it away, I still had alot of questions as to what happened to whom at the end. Ms. Christofferson did not tie up her lose ends. Hate that!

Definitely a Page Turner!! This suspenseful thriller kept me hooked right up to the very last page!! The character development was terrific, with no confusing jumping back and forth. Some medical thrillers get too uncomfortable for me, but PROTOCOL is one that took me to the edge,, but didn't step over. It was fast paced, yet it flowed easily. I enjoyed the relationship building between the main players. If this was April Christofferson's 1st book, then I can't wait to read her next ones!

Jennifer Rockhill reason's didn't ring true to me. Her being able to pass herself off as something she isn't, a biotech lawyer, was too much of a stretch. And an ex-CIA guy doing the very same thing. Poor, boring writing and story.

This certainly isn't the best medical thriller out there. It lacks finesse, constancy, and at times, clarity. It's obvious that this is Christofferson's medical thriller debut, but it does show strong promise. The basic story is that Jennifer Rockhill, attorney, wants to avenge her husband's mysterious death. She tracks down the doctor she holds as responsible and finds that he has started a biotech firm in Seattle. Rockhill quits her job at a mid-size firm and crosstrains as a biotech lawyer. She bluffs her way into a position with this doctor's financially-struggling company. Missing scientists, supposedly non-existent labs, the CIA, human cloning and government conspiracies abound.

To sum up, this book is enjoyable fluff, but may leave seasoned medical thrill readers wanting more. The plot isn't as unbelievable as people think it is. Good use of medical terminology which isn't dumbed down for the reader's sake. Read this before reading Christofferson's latest offering, Clinical Trial, and you'll see how much more focused and fluid her writing has become.

I don't like using the word mediocre, but that is pretty much what the book is. An evil, powerful man is responsible for the death of the lead characters husband and child, and she sets out to frame him and get revenge. How she gets close to him is unrealistic, but this is fiction. There is also an ex-CIA agent working for a competitive company also attempting to get some info on the bad guy. They wind out working together to bring him down. But the plot falls short in action, and the demise of the bad guy is too abrupt and "distant", even though that was the actual point of all the predicaments the lead characters engaged in. The ending does stop short, leaving too much left undone, but don't write off this author yet. I think she has shown promise of better works to come.

Yes, a plot that it's difficult to believe. While truth can be stranger than fiction, the many not-credible happenstances that this author would have us believe significantly detract from the book.
On top of that, there's only one character who has more than one dimension to their personality. Everyone else, from the protagonist on down, is either all-good or all bad -- if you count the heroine's mixing in of revenge with justice as "good."

Not a bad read and I think she is a very promising writer but what was going on with the ending? It JUST STOPPED! Unless there is a book #2 coming out (and there was no preview of it in this one) this book left too many loose ends to be satisfying.

I agree with the last reviewer who said that the author did not tie up her loose ends properly. There were quite a few left dangling at the end - some intentionally, I suppose. But there was something quite unsatisfying about the ending of this book. This is the second book I have read within the last few weeks that left too many ends dangling - the other was Do You Want to Know a Secret? by Mary Jane Clark. (Hey, editors - can you crack down on this, please!)