Customer Reviews

Sword of God (Payne & Jones Series)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Sword of God is a pageturner. I picked it up at the airport, and was half way done when my plane landed about 4 hours later. It grabbed my attention right away, and held it until the story was finished.

What you want to know about this book.

1)It isn't a classic - it isn't exquisitely written or terribly detailed. The plot is farfetched.

2)It is a fun adventure with a very creative plot, and elements taken from real-life that contribute to its relevance.

3)The blood and gore make this book adult-only. If you don't have a tolerance for violence, this is not a book you want to read.

4)Without a doubt, I'll read Kuzneski's next book.

The author takes the reader thru geography-history-culture and a few things we woulkd all like to forget. The senerios the author develops allows the reader to focus on location,culture, and history in a manner that educates as well as entertains. The villians may become the heroes. One thing the author does well is to allow the reader to feel passion and disgust at the same time. For a first time reader this novel may have to much information to digest. For the experienced reader it is just right. It is not the fault of the author that the print is smaller than desired. Even if the reader uses glasses I suggest they give this work a go. Dave Hall

Compared to the earlier story I just read, this one was a lot more focused. The story centered more around Payne and Jones and their quest to get to the bottom of a plot to cause mayhem in Mecca.

With the usual cast of characters including Nick Dial and their CIA insider (can't remember his name), Chris weaves an interesting thriller that takes the reader from an Island off Korea to Saudi Arabia.

Sure, there are flaws, but I was able to overlook them as I had a great time just enjoying the flow of the story. He writes fairly short chapters, keeps to short paragraphs and has plenty of dialogue. There is plenty of space on each page that makes for an easy read.

The biggest annoyance to me is the inevitable author intrusion at the end of almost every chapter where he tells the reader what is going to happen next. "Little did Payne know how bad so and so would end up..." and so on. As a reader, I'd rather find out when the character does, and not be forewarned. He also likes to head-hop. I'm surprised his editor let him get away with that.

Neither of those flaws were enough to knock this story down a notch. It had a satisfying ending, plenty of humor, and kept me entertained. Can't ask for more. Highly recommended.

OMFG! If anyone in our "intelligence" community were to read something that would scare the living daylights out of them.. it would be THIS book. As I got further into the book.. all I could think.. was.. OH MY FREAKING GOD.. Don't let this book fall into the hands of evil doers. The plot.. is so good.. that it could be a blueprint to the end of OUR world. And, that's SCARY.

I've read a lot of authors and Chris Kuzneski is right up there with the best. As I was born and raised in Pittsburgh I find it very entertaining that the characters Jonathan Payne and David Jones are Pittsburgh natives. Anyone who likes a good mystery and has ever lived in Pittsburgh will enjoy these books!

The Lone Ranger and Tonto save The Great Mosque of Mecca

Hi Ho Silver and it's off to JeJu Island, Korea, for the next adventure of the intrepid former MANIACS warrior duo of Jonathon Payne and D.J. Jones. I like Chris Kuzneski's style of writing. He makes no bones about trying to create a memorable literary epic, he simply writes an interesting tale.; and he does a good job. Sword of God is an even balanced story about a missing black special ops team that retired soldiers Payne and Jones have been asked to find. Starting in a blood drenched secret cave on the island of Jeju, Payne and Jones are off to the proverbial races in their quest to either find the missing team or discover what happened to them. Along the way they are confronted with various interesting scenarios that test both their intellectual abilities and their combat skills. Eventually, the wise cracking duo are forced to solve several mysteries before the interesting conclusion of this thriller. Mr. Kuzneski does a good job of keeping the story moving at an even pace. The conclusion is adequate but there were several loose ends that never get tied up to my satisfaction. In fact, Mr. Kusneski could have developed these loose ends into more interesting sub plots. My only other question is, why did he entitle this work Sword of God? Where was the sword and what did it have to do with anything? Ahhh, details, always details-LOL.

Character development was shallow. I did enjoy the wise cracking interplay of Payne and Jones. Mr. Kuzneski showed flashes of brilliance here along the line of Nelson DeMille and Michael Connolly. It kept the story moving and fun to read.

No gratuitous sex, language, or violence. This showed Mr. Kuzneski writing strength as he didn't need to depend on those weak literary crutches. Good job in that respect.

Average recommend. You can only get this book in paperback so the price shouldn't be a factor. A good book to buy if it's 10PM and you need a read for that red-eye flight to Europe. A good long one-legger book. Quick read. I like Mr. Kuzneski writing style and will read the rest of his Payne/Jones series. I just hope he doesn't fall into the "shoot'em up bang bang" trap that so many of today's thriller writers surrender to.

In the author's own words:

"Talk? All he does is talk. Ten minutes ago I asked him about this facility, and he started blabbing about the effects of molten lava... Seriously, who the hell does that?"

"Why would you do that? Do I look like I give a damn about molten anything?"

This character has the book nailed. Kuzneski often goes off on an entire page that seems like it was information copied from Wikipedia. If you enjoy reading about facts that don't help push the plot at all then this book is for you.

His grammar and literary skills are amazing, but he often tells the reader everything that's going through the characters' mind. This is often unnecessary as the actions prior to the characters' thought process completely explain how they are feeling. Many things could be cut which would make this book much easier to read. The book could probably be half as long and twice as good.

There are many characters and often they are introduced through a long description of their past. This is very boring compared to learning about the characters as the book progresses.

In addition to the faults above, the characters and plot are completely cliched and predictable. I really tried to enjoy this book, but most of it seemed like it could be read off as a lot of bad one liners.

A book isn't fun when you have to try to enjoy it. This book seemed like work.

I finished it just to see how it ends, not because if found it compelling. The plot certainly is farfetched; however, the characters bothered me more: shallow, stereoptypical, one dimensional. We have the standard super macho hero, the standard assertive female, the all-bad bad guy, the knick-of-time ending, etc. Jones, the witty black assistant is the most interesting character, but only because he occasionally has snappy lines, not because he is developed or multi-dimentional. This was my first and probably my last Kuzenski novel.

This book is written in a never ending string of clichés. Imagine a book written in the style of daytime soap operas; everything seeming to be overly dramatic. I am a great consumer of thrillers with three word titles of The Name Action variety but even I could not cope with this tripe.

Back-cover comments about the Grand Mosque and Mecca grabbed my attention, and when I got to those parts this book wasn't half-bad, with the accent on 'half'.

What spoilt it en-route were numerous diversions to Korean caves and other ominous global threats, never really detailed and left as hopeful cliff-hangers. And the dialogue between the characters was painful at times. I wondered if it was just me, so referenced some of Kuzneski's other books. I noted the Publisher's Weekly comment on the last which described the style as 'Sophomoric'. Yes, that just about nails how I felt too: the banter and lame jokes between the two main characters simply don't work. Worse still they kill any built up suspense and credibility.

Okay if you're looking for an OTT A-team style read, but not outside of that. However, I did find the Mecca city parts more enjoyable and so the threat and pace worked better there. So in the end it managed to redeem itself from two stars and gain another star.