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A review by idontwantanotherusername
The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci
2.0
I only made it all the way through this because I'd paid for the audiobook. If I'd just bought the paperback it'd have been a dnf.
From the blurb, I was expecting a miltary adventure/thriller type book, but it's really closer to the whodunit genre.
My main issue is that the main character is an ex-soldier, but talks to people as if he's a police detective - nearly every narrative is him asking someone blunt questions. It's jarringly unrealistic - people would just tell him to FO, not answer the constant interrogation of some random guy. This even extends to his interactions with the police, with him asking them as many or more questions than they ask him.
But in this world, everyone answers his interrogations - that includes the police giving him info about their investigation, doctors happily passing on private medical information about other people, families airing their deepest secrets, etc. It's ludicrous.
Another annoyance is that the same plot lines seem to get repeated over and over in the narratives. He discusses the exact same, largely irrelevant, points with multiple characters - that quickly gets boring.
My final grievance is that the ending is way too fractured. It introduces new plotlines/character motivations that haven't even been hinted at until the final few pages. So many fantastical plot twists are then shoe-horned in to the final 5% of the book, that it comes across as unreal. It becomes apparent that pretty much all of the investigating that he did in the previous 95% of the book was fruitless; with reality only revealed because the antagonists each decide to, scooby-doo pesky-kids style, go through 180 degree character transformations, then explain in great depth what they had done and their motivations.
Meh...
From the blurb, I was expecting a miltary adventure/thriller type book, but it's really closer to the whodunit genre.
My main issue is that the main character is an ex-soldier, but talks to people as if he's a police detective - nearly every narrative is him asking someone blunt questions. It's jarringly unrealistic - people would just tell him to FO, not answer the constant interrogation of some random guy. This even extends to his interactions with the police, with him asking them as many or more questions than they ask him.
But in this world, everyone answers his interrogations - that includes the police giving him info about their investigation, doctors happily passing on private medical information about other people, families airing their deepest secrets, etc. It's ludicrous.
Another annoyance is that the same plot lines seem to get repeated over and over in the narratives. He discusses the exact same, largely irrelevant, points with multiple characters - that quickly gets boring.
My final grievance is that the ending is way too fractured. It introduces new plotlines/character motivations that haven't even been hinted at until the final few pages. So many fantastical plot twists are then shoe-horned in to the final 5% of the book, that it comes across as unreal. It becomes apparent that pretty much all of the investigating that he did in the previous 95% of the book was fruitless; with reality only revealed because the antagonists each decide to, scooby-doo pesky-kids style, go through 180 degree character transformations, then explain in great depth what they had done and their motivations.
Meh...