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A review by secre
Power Play by Tony Kent
3.0
When a plane crashes to the ground killing all aboard including a presidential candidate, the obvious conclusion is a terrorist attack. When someone comes forward to confess to planting the bomb, it would seem to be a cut and dry case. But DCI Bruce Bull suspects this isn’t as cut and dried as it may look and he is not the only one with suspicions. Joe Dempsey and his boss from the International Security Bureau suspect that this goes all the way to the top, with the President himself somehow embroiled in the mass murder. It isn’t long however before their questions attract some unwanted attention and it isn’t just their suspect in danger, but everyone connected.
This is a fast paced, high action political thriller that doesn’t pull it’s punches as it hurtles you into a conspiracy that reaches the highest echelons of government. I struggled to get into it at first, perhaps because of the number of characters introduced in the initial short, sharp introduction but before long I was hooked. That is perhaps that novels main flaw; it introduces a lot of characters yet doesn’t develop enough of them. It works as a stand-alone novel because of the fast pace, but I can’t help but think there was something missing. Several characters clearly have a backstory explained in previous novels, but unless you have read the prior novels, you are left rather in the dark and expected to connect with characters you know precious little about.
The lawyer is perhaps the best example of this. He has clearly been a lead character in previous novels and so Kent wastes few words building him up. For those of us coming in blind though, this leaves a supposedly crucial character feeling strangely two dimensional. He gets dragged into events almost accidentally but he remains an accidental character to the end. Kent is strongest when building his truly incidental characters; those who haven’t got a backstory written that a new reader is unaware of. A lot of characters are also introduced very quickly, meaning that to begin with it was difficult to keep various characters straight in your head. This became less of an issue as the novel went on, but did make it difficult to initially jump into.
Once events get going, it is all hands on deck as those in a place of power to do so turn to ever more ruthless methods to suppress what the truth and stop the spread of information. I admit that I found the number of 'hits' ordered to be somewhat extreme and rather implausible - by the time you've failed to kill three people, it surely must occur to you that you are simply making the situation worse. Instead events keep on multiplying with more dead bodies and what must have been an unavoidable amount of public attention in real life. The underhanded political machinations are given far less credence than the big bang action scenes with guns and it all because a little too implausible for my liking, even if the fast paced action certainly does keep you turning the pages.
All in all, this is well written and if you like your novels to be full of tense shoot outs and hits gone wrong, then you will likely love this novel. Personally, I found the events depicted became almost farcical as Kent ramped up the pace. Nobody seemed to stop and think of the likely consequences of so many bodies surrounding a high profile terrorist case, which seems unlikely to say the least. I also felt more could have been done with the characters, particularly those who have back-story in previous novels as if you come in to this cold like I did, there is an assumption that you have more information than you really do.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free review copy of this title.
This is a fast paced, high action political thriller that doesn’t pull it’s punches as it hurtles you into a conspiracy that reaches the highest echelons of government. I struggled to get into it at first, perhaps because of the number of characters introduced in the initial short, sharp introduction but before long I was hooked. That is perhaps that novels main flaw; it introduces a lot of characters yet doesn’t develop enough of them. It works as a stand-alone novel because of the fast pace, but I can’t help but think there was something missing. Several characters clearly have a backstory explained in previous novels, but unless you have read the prior novels, you are left rather in the dark and expected to connect with characters you know precious little about.
The lawyer is perhaps the best example of this. He has clearly been a lead character in previous novels and so Kent wastes few words building him up. For those of us coming in blind though, this leaves a supposedly crucial character feeling strangely two dimensional. He gets dragged into events almost accidentally but he remains an accidental character to the end. Kent is strongest when building his truly incidental characters; those who haven’t got a backstory written that a new reader is unaware of. A lot of characters are also introduced very quickly, meaning that to begin with it was difficult to keep various characters straight in your head. This became less of an issue as the novel went on, but did make it difficult to initially jump into.
Once events get going, it is all hands on deck as those in a place of power to do so turn to ever more ruthless methods to suppress what the truth and stop the spread of information. I admit that I found the number of 'hits' ordered to be somewhat extreme and rather implausible - by the time you've failed to kill three people, it surely must occur to you that you are simply making the situation worse. Instead events keep on multiplying with more dead bodies and what must have been an unavoidable amount of public attention in real life. The underhanded political machinations are given far less credence than the big bang action scenes with guns and it all because a little too implausible for my liking, even if the fast paced action certainly does keep you turning the pages.
All in all, this is well written and if you like your novels to be full of tense shoot outs and hits gone wrong, then you will likely love this novel. Personally, I found the events depicted became almost farcical as Kent ramped up the pace. Nobody seemed to stop and think of the likely consequences of so many bodies surrounding a high profile terrorist case, which seems unlikely to say the least. I also felt more could have been done with the characters, particularly those who have back-story in previous novels as if you come in to this cold like I did, there is an assumption that you have more information than you really do.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for my free review copy of this title.