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.
