Sure, he’s got hold of the Charles Dickens-idea of ending the chapter on a high, but then he sticks a dead zone of a recipe in between any built-up excitement and his reader. Unless he’s deliberately trying to break/sabotage any rhythm, suspense, momentum, the preceding chapter might have built up. Even I, in my copywriting days who have written enough bollocks about things I didn’t understand, can’t think of a rational explanation I could bullshit a boss with. Does anyone know what the effing point of them is? The answer friends, isn’t blowin’ in the wind, the answer is “ no!” Is there anyone who doesn’t groan when they get to the end of the chapter and see another one? Does anyone not groan when during a chapter the characters eat something – or even just smell food in one instance – knowing there’s gonna be a bloody recipe? Does anyone try one of them? And live? Is there anyone who doesn’t skip over to get to the start of the next chapter, hoping that what happened hasn’t been destroyed in their memory by the bloody recipe. Enough ‘mix aggressively’ – there’s even an ‘aggressively sauté’ ffs – ‘ garlic’ this, ‘marinate’ that, ‘slather’ the other and general “Really?! That, with cheese?! That’s not healthy, surely?!” general artery-hardening mismatched ingredients – think again. If you thought you’d suffered enough ‘sautés’ this that and the other.

He’s obviously settled into the writing now, and learned a lot about writing tension, plot and thrillers in general, from Red Sparrow and so this being a better book, is a gratifying surprise, being the follow up to a well-received, and filmed, first. It hangs together better and is more thrilling and has a depth the first one was only beginning to scratch at.

The most unlikely of traitors is uncovered by the most dangerous of men.Ī brilliant, unorthodox CIA agent must single-handedly connect the dots to stop an intricate house of cards from toppling in a cold war that’s taken a terrifying new twist.Īll in all, seen as a whole, this second volume in the Red Sparrow trilogy, is probably actually better than the first, Red Sparrow (surprisingly enough). Moments later she walks away leaving her assailant for dead.Īn elderly man walks into the American embassy with a story to tell.

Publisher: Michael Joseph (Penguin Random House)Ī young woman is cornered on a deserted boulevard.

Palace of treason by jason matthews