The Paris Vendetta by Steve Berry

Book:  The Paris Vendetta

Author:  Steve Berry  

Grade:  F


Recommended To:  No One.  Save yourself the time and money. 


I picked up this book at the used book store, Shake Rattle & Read, by my house because they were having a sale.  And aren't used book sales the greatest place to try new authors?  Two bucks for a book really means that if it sucks, then at least you didn't pay 10 bucks for a brand new copy.

Also, a friend and guest reviewer on this site recommended this author as being close to Daniel Silva, and by God, I love Daniel Silva.   Unfortunately, The Paris Vendetta is the most god-awful work of "spy" fiction that I've ever had the displeasure of reading.

Never in my life have I wanted to look out the train window at the back of buildings instead of reading the book that I brought along.   I think it is a bad sign when I keep rolling my eyes at the dialogue and characters.  If only the author had been on the train with me I could have told him that his book made me think for the briefest of seconds that reading wasn't fun anymore. Gasp!  I thought giving my previous review the critique that the book was boring was the worst that could happen on this blog.  But, I hadn't yet started The Paris Vendetta.

Berry is trying to be Dan Brown and failing miserably.  I was 185 pages into this book (and let's be serious, that's as far as I got, I'm not finishing this crap) and literally NOTHING had happened. Or to be more accurate, a whole lot of something happened that didn't come close to full circle 1/3 of the way through.  I will never find out why the main character was chasing some website guy through a museum - and that is just fine with me.  185 pages to tie all of the pieces together is just too long.  This guy needs a new profession or a serious editor. 

I had really high hopes for this book.  I thought it was going to be a fast read, and at least in that sense I was not wrong, because I ended up skimming half of the pages in hopes of finding something interesting.  I give this book a solid F.  Skip it: save your time and your money.