The Whole Truth
ISBN: 9780330517775
Description
Nicolas Creel, a super-rich arms dealer, decides that the best way to boost his business is to start a new cold war - and he won't let anything or anyone get in his way. As international tensions rise and the superpowers line up against each other, the lives of three very different people will never be the same again. As intelligence agent Shaw, academic Anna Fischer and ambitious journalist Katie James are all drawn into Creel's games, can anything stop the world from spiralling out of control?
Reviewed on 29th June 2024
Having just finished a hefty non-fiction tome, I was recommended (by said tome) to pick up a thriller next, and so I grabbed this one which was early on my shelf and had remained unread for some years.
The narrative immediately grated. I was dropped into a scene of baddies plotting their plots, which is never something that I find that interesting - where’s the mystery? Where’s the joy in working things out? I don’t want a sense of empathy with the baddies.
Then I was introduced to “Shaw” - no first name - who for some reason in advance of reading I’d got the impression was going to be a professional female special agent character. But nope, turned out to be a man with an ego and no easy to discern profession. I don’t know why I’d got the impression I was expecting a woman, but it was disappointing to find another book about a man.
But still I kept going, until in about the fifth chapter there was a scene so unnecessarily reprehensible, that just felt like it was a throwaway scene to make the hero look less seedy, but could have been handled with much less shock value.
And so yeah, this was in no way what I was looking for to read. I wasn’t feeling entertained, I wasn’t feeling escapism, and I was being made to feel uncomfortable by the author’s choices of what to include. So away it went and I moved on to something more fun. I won’t return.