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A review by zephyrsilver
Manipulations by Raymond Khoury
Did not finish book.
I'm torn. I've read all of Khoury's other novels and enjoyed all of them (except for Devil's Elixir). I didn't even finish this one. I gave up after 150 pages because I was so bored.
Maybe it's because I'm not a huge fan of Russian history. Rasputin himself does interest me, but I know so little of Russian history, nor do I have much interest in it, as compared to the Templars. That might be affecting my opinion of this book.
I also did not realize that this was another Sean Reilly book (I refuse to call this series the Templar series, considering half of the books have not been about Templars). I thought it was a stand alone, like The Sign and The Sanctuary. I enjoyed Reilly in the first book. In the second book, I was a tad bit confused at relationships I'd forgotten. The third book had left me very confused about who was whom in his life. This one? Forget it. It's been so long since I've read the other books that I completely forgot he had a kid - let alone who that kid was with. It was very difficult to remember what had happened in his life and with whom he was involved.
Maybe I never noticed this before, or it never bothered me, but I wish he had just used third-person the whole way around. I can't stand authors who use first person for just one character, but still use third person on other characters. Pick a POV and stick with it. It looks amateurish if you don't. Also, I found Reilly's voice to be very annoying. I did not want to be in his head.
The story seemed so dull to me. The Last Templar still stands out vividly to me, because Templars stormed a museum within the first few pages. It was epic. Things got going quickly, and boy was it strange. This one? A guy gets pushed out a window over a Russian gang war. I wanted a lot more of Rasputin's impact, straight from the start. That was what I was interested in.
I quickly lost track of who was who and how they knew each other. It was really difficult for some reason. On top of that, I didn't care about any of them. At all. I tried, I really did. But I couldn't care.
I'm devastated. The Last Templar had such an impact on me. I loved it - considering it lead me to read the rest of the books, it was friggin good. But Devil's Elixir was disappointing, and I couldn't even finish this one. It might be my tastes changing, since it has been a few years since I read his first novel. Which also makes me terrified of going back and re-reading The Last Templar and finding out that my tastes have changed. Or maybe it's just this one and The Devil's Elixir. I don't know. But I had to force myself to read this, and I just couldn't finish it.
Maybe it's because I'm not a huge fan of Russian history. Rasputin himself does interest me, but I know so little of Russian history, nor do I have much interest in it, as compared to the Templars. That might be affecting my opinion of this book.
I also did not realize that this was another Sean Reilly book (I refuse to call this series the Templar series, considering half of the books have not been about Templars). I thought it was a stand alone, like The Sign and The Sanctuary. I enjoyed Reilly in the first book. In the second book, I was a tad bit confused at relationships I'd forgotten. The third book had left me very confused about who was whom in his life. This one? Forget it. It's been so long since I've read the other books that I completely forgot he had a kid - let alone who that kid was with. It was very difficult to remember what had happened in his life and with whom he was involved.
Maybe I never noticed this before, or it never bothered me, but I wish he had just used third-person the whole way around. I can't stand authors who use first person for just one character, but still use third person on other characters. Pick a POV and stick with it. It looks amateurish if you don't. Also, I found Reilly's voice to be very annoying. I did not want to be in his head.
The story seemed so dull to me. The Last Templar still stands out vividly to me, because Templars stormed a museum within the first few pages. It was epic. Things got going quickly, and boy was it strange. This one? A guy gets pushed out a window over a Russian gang war. I wanted a lot more of Rasputin's impact, straight from the start. That was what I was interested in.
I quickly lost track of who was who and how they knew each other. It was really difficult for some reason. On top of that, I didn't care about any of them. At all. I tried, I really did. But I couldn't care.
I'm devastated. The Last Templar had such an impact on me. I loved it - considering it lead me to read the rest of the books, it was friggin good. But Devil's Elixir was disappointing, and I couldn't even finish this one. It might be my tastes changing, since it has been a few years since I read his first novel. Which also makes me terrified of going back and re-reading The Last Templar and finding out that my tastes have changed. Or maybe it's just this one and The Devil's Elixir. I don't know. But I had to force myself to read this, and I just couldn't finish it.