A review by sandygx260
The Third Gate by Lincoln Child

2.0

Fine, everyone likes drama in their read. But twisting around historical facts and misrepresenting actual places to suit the story is a bit—shall we say, dishonest?

Granted, Child admitted he performed plenty of embellishment and fact-warping, but why do this? When I read about the Sudd, a place that is definitely the book's main character, I was like "wow, this place is a hellhole—I need to look it up!" Guess what? It's not a hellhole, not in the least. To me, as a writer, why not create a hellhole swamp, give it a name, and go from there? Writers make up fictional cities, towns, countries— why not a fictional swamp?

Guess Child doesn't think a reader will research what he's writing about during the read. Something like that makes me also mistrust the scientific research.

I believe I have the same quibble about this book that I had in the first Child book I read. Fine, everyone does stupid things, but when a character in Child's world embraces stupid, they are laughable.

I might try a third book, because I do like Logan's character, but now I'll doubt every fact I read.