Rating: WARTY!
Be warned there are spoilers in this, I've kept descriptions as vague as I can and also somewhat out of order - in order to minmize spoilers, but I can't address specific problems with a narrative unless I talk about what those problems are, otherwise it's simply a vague list of complaints without any supporting evidence, and I'm not that kind of reviewer. It's of even less help to a writer if I don't explain what the problems are, but I shall try not to go into more detail than I have to, to make a point.
I struggled with this one in consideration of whether it was a truly worthy read or not, but when I went back and analyzed my notes afterwards, I had no problem downgrading this. In some ways, it had a lot going for it, but in the end, the highly improbable plotting, the literally incredible coincidences, and some really poor and/or thoughtless writing made my mind up for me. The ending did not help the case at all, so I can't recommend this novel. Plus it was way too long for what it offered, and as if that isn't bad enough, it's the first of a series where even though the bad guys are soundly beaten in this volume, we find they're not really beaten at all in volume two. What?! Yeah, that's what I mean about improbable.
I am not a fan of inane story arcs like this any more than I'm a fan of the 'girls in peril' genre of horror movie where the psycho is killed two or three times but always gets resurrected and comes after the girl(s) again just when they think it's safe - and this is all in the first movie! As if that wasn't bad enough, we get not one, not two, but three villainous assassins, two of which are straight out of horror movies. Their behaviors make little sense. One of them is supposed to be so strong and muscular that he can dislocate your shoulder by a simple squeeze of his fingers - and this guy travels around under the radar? No! Another of the villains can literally rearrange his face so his appearance changes. He can even pass for a woman. What? No! Just no! This isn't a Marvel comic book!
Written very much in the Dan Brown mold of "impossible to solve" puzzles which are really rather juvenile, and in the National Treasure mold of hidden booty and arcane clues which are so old they don't even matter any more, this one featured a female protagonist by the name of Salem Wiley, who we're told is a 'genius cryptanalyst', but we see very little of that (although she is smart enough to know that lightning does strike twice in the same place!). She's partnered with a Chicago cop named Isabel who was a lot more interesting, but who got second-billing and relatively little air time. There never was any good reason why these two resisted going to the police or the press, or the Internet with what they knew at any given point in the story. In fact, most of the time it would have made far more sense if they had. I don't mind stories where they go it alone or avoid the police, but there has to be a good reason for that. Here, and for the most part, there was not.
After every few chapters there was a huge info-dump on Salem's past which I took to skipping after perusing the first one. They were boring and unimportant and they brought the story to a screeching halt if you stopped to read them, as did the chapters which pursued the campaign of the "first viable candidate for election as a female president," which were irrelevant to the main thrust of the story and should have been omitted. Oh, and excuse me, what is Hilary Clinton - chopped liver? Well, only if you're a Republican!
Worse than this, the extra pages bulked-up the novel embarrassingly and were, frankly, a potential waste of trees, as was the formatting of this book with blank pages all over the place. In this era of ebooks, trees are not so raped and pillaged as they used to be, but if this novel ever went to a significant print-run, I would fear for the forests to the tune of a hundred or a hundred-fifty or so superfluous pages.
The story's central premise is the most ridiculous of all: that there's a secret society of men which is dedicated to keeping women out of power (and it's not even the Republicans! LOL!) - to the point of assassinating them if necessary. Excuse me? Since when have men ever needed a secret society to step on women? The whole thing is utterly absurd, as are the links the author makes, calling in Emily Dickinson to offer clues to Thomas Beale's treasure via absurdist non-puzzles hidden in even more silly, improbable, and risky locations offering an inanely ancient, but still extant trail of clues which any middle-grader worth her salt could uncover, and at the end of this trial is a list of the members of this society - which itself is really irrelevant given how much families have intermarried in the intervening century and a half?
The list is supposed to be still relevant because it travels in bloodlines, so we're expected to believe that in a republic which came together to overthrow a monarchy, power is passed down like royalty from mother to daughter to combat the status quo which is power passed down like royalty from father to son? How is that even an improvement?!
My question here is why would any secret society keep a list of their members hidden by simplistic clues so that their enemies could find it? If it's passed from mother to daughter, why would they even need such a list? Why would anyone care about such a list if all they wanted to do is keep women down, for which they're already doing a fine job by sabotaging "uppity women", and undermining them, and assassinating them if necessary? Why would they even be considered a threat (or conversely, a success) if they're doing such a lousy job that women have sprung-up everywhere around the world into positions of power and influence despite all this?! The premises of this establishment were vacant!
In general, the writing was technically good, which you would (hopefully!) expect in an author's thirteenth novel, but the plotting too often felt like it came from an author's debut novel, with far too many convenient coincidences and overly dramatic characters. Some of the writing left something to be desired ranging from the minor to the major (as I've already explored). There were instances like, for example where I read, "Cards and gifts at all the appropriate holidays" which would have made more sense if it had read, "Appropriate cards and gifts at the holidays." Is there an inappropriate holiday to send cards?! But then I wondered: is it cipher?!
Once again I was sorry to see that I had run into yet another female author who was practically labeling women as worthless unless they were physically attractive. At one point I read, "Pretty flight attendant" and at another, "Catherine wasn't beautiful, but she was smart." Excuse me? Beauty comes first, but since she's ugly at least she has the consolation prize of being smart? It's not as good as beautiful, but being smart is the best she can do? It's sad, but it's all she has to offer? In a novel about a "genius cryptanalyst," smarts is on the back burner? That's frankly a disgraceful insult to women. I didn't get why the flight attendant's looks were remotely relevant, unless we're to understand that her death would have been somehow less tragic had she been 'homely'. That kind of writing is nauseating and obnoxious - and it's unacceptable.
There were unintentionally amusing portions where for example, I learned that Emily Dickinson lived behind the green door. No wonder she was depressed! I'm guessing the door wasn't green when she lived there, but who knows? Maybe it was! There were some instances of intentional humor, but not many. Unfortunately, there were lots of minor hiccups such as when a guy comes in dressed for Halloween and has five-cent pieces taped to the back of his T-shit. How did Salem see them when he never turned around? Nickelback never sounded so bad. On another topic, I think by "200 convening years" the author actually meant "200 intervening years."
There were larger issues, though. One of the most glaring was when they were supposed to get rid of their phones and one of them doesn't. The other knows she has not done so because she's shown the phone with her phone number in the case, yet later the other one is supposed to be pissed-off upon just discovering that her trusted friend lied about ditching the phone? In movies this is known as poor continuity, and the sad thing was this part (showing her phone number in the case) could have been completely excised! It wasn't necessary to the story. This is the problem with long novels: you grow tired of reading through them to catch errors like this and inevitably some get missed! We've all been there. This is why I don't write long novels!
At one point Salem and Isabel take a trip to Massachusetts, and the timing for the various stages of their journey is completely amiss throughout the trip, with hours disappearing unaccounted-for so we have sunset and sunrise popping with undue haste or undue tardiness. Also on this trip we have an assassin who is itching to kill these two women, and yet when he has his best opportunity - when they're sleeping in the car on the side of a deserted road at night, he has six hours in which to kill them, yet he fails to act despite previously vowing he will get them asap? There was no explanation for this, except of course that these two are our heroes so we can't kill them off - and this assassin is quite literally the most inept assassin ever.
That makes my case for not viewing this novel as a worthy read so I'l leave it there. This author can write, for the most part, and I wish her luck with her career, but this novel fell flat for me despite the appealing premise of two women taking care of business without needing men to save them. I'm sorry I could rate it better.
