Jon Courtenay Grimwood

It was a fight to read the first three-quarters of The Fallen Blade, and the last quarter only worked because it was incessant action involving a character you actually like. Almost every character, both protagonist and villain, are either bland and or unlikable, and not in the good way. There were so many times I just wanted to slap one of the POV characters upside the head, lost track of who they were duo to the sheer number of them combined with very little distinction,or ended up putting the book down because something about a character just elementally made no sense. Their interactions with one another are stilted, feel contrived and, much like themselves, are absolutely devoid of life.
Beyond the characters, the Fallen Blade's prose is rough. While it has some flow, it is also boring and lifeless, serving only to build ubiquitously colorless scenes for its colorless characters which sapped other life it might have had. More than that, there was moments were the prose is confusing, switches scenes, characters, and focus without warning, and is so weighed down by the authors attempts at style that the flow almost stops. Speaking of style and scene building, the author has too much of the former and far too little of the latter. In the Fallen Blade Venice, one of the most interesting cities a writer could explore, is barely touched by the author and throughout the entire books remains a vague notion of how it should like, and this notion is derived from the reader's own experience with Venice. Much like everything else, the city and culture is utterly sapped of life.
Finally we have the plot, only the Fallen Blade barely has one. The characters flail around uselessly for the first half of the book, getting pulled this way and that by whichever tide happens to be in motion. In the next quarter one of the characters is given a direction for his story, not purpose mind you, but the author then skips most of that character's journey and instead shows you more meaningless flailing. Then, finally, you reach the last quarter of a book, meet a enjoyable character, and receive an actual plot, no matter that said plot is just a vast army invading and the protagonists have to heroically deffest it. Much self-sacrifice ensues, including the death the one protagonist you actually like, and then book ends and the reader is left wondering why he bothered to finish it.
So in summary, I did not like the Fallen Blade, and have no intention of reading its sequel.… (more)

In 1987 research zoologist Dr Amelia Blackburn ventures north to investigate the ravages of the Chernobyl reactor meltdown and stumbles on the evidence of another disaster on the Norway-Russia border. Russia will stop at nothing to prevent this information from being revealed, putting Amelia and her team in grave danger from the moment they leave the site. When the news reaches London, British intelligence turns to the one man with the knowledge and skills to bring her back to safety – and find out what has really happened.

Tom Fox is grieving over his newly dead wife and wrapped in a custody battle for his young son, Charlie, but a request from his high-ranking father-in-law forces his hand. When the reluctant spy reaches Russia, it becomes clear this is no ordinary mission. As Fox and Amelia fight for their lives in Russia, Charlie is lead into dangers of his own in England by an old IRA adversary of Tom's out for vengeance.

The Arctic story line is quite exciting, although a bit too full of holes and coincidences to be completely believable. The England story line seems to serve no purpose and does not really go anywhere. The flashbacks to Tom working in Northern Ireland during the Troubles are similarly detached from the overall story.

There is at least one good spy adventure story here, but trying to cram all three of them in has left it all a bit of a muddle.… (more)

I had a small amount of trouble truly getting into this book. I'm not sure if for whatever reason my brain just could not grasp all the different characters, or if there was just too much going on at once for me to follow properly, but I found myself constantly having to refer back to the 'Character List' in the front in order to remember who was who. Who was beholden to who, who held what position, etc.

There was also the matter that other then Tycho and Guiletta, the characters all seemed to have the same 'voice'. Its told in third person limited, but there wasn't much to distinguish one viewpoint from another. They all sort of bled into each other in a confusing manner.

Moving back to the confusion I felt regarding the characters and remembering their various allegiances, some of that stemmed from the fact few of the characters seemed to be truly tied to one faction or the other. Everyone was running so many agendas and schemes, most of which crossed each other and interfered with each other, it was hard to keep the lines straight. I eventually resorted to keeping a running list of everyone's actions, but even then it became a long winded chart.

Where Grimwood really shone was in his depiction of Venice and the time period. Many times I could almost feel the decadence and filth that Grimwood meticulously details of the canals, streets and palaces. The intrigues of the families and parishes, the various types of people and stations of life, they came alive. The narrative though doesn't let the reader figure out very much on their own. A mystery, or secret, is introduced, some clues are strewn about, but almost immediately things become obvious. There's very little sustained tension.… (more)