Flimsy plot with simple characters
359798
I gave this book a 2 star because I found the plot to be flimsy and the characters to be simple.  That being said there were some parts of the book that I did like.  It is a "thriller" and there are some twists that I didn't see coming.  I got a bit annoyed that the author kept repeating certain plot lines of the book and I didn't completely understand the reason for that.
2950248
Could not sustain interest in the characters or the plot
829383
Disappointing novel whose trivial plot is resolved unconvincingly:  we're expected to buy that bloodthirsty Russian mafia types are going to walk away from a small town after their palatial ski house is torched.  The characters are folksy and fake, too, forever eschewing the word "doesn't" but otherwise astute with their diction.  The narrator's wife has an affair but refuses to discuss it, and the narrator accepts this incongruity as readily as the other "rule-bending" quirks of his townsfolk.  The real mystery is whether the author was just lazy, or incapable of weaving an intricate crime story with authentically rustic characters.
3108402
I heartily agree with the reviewer who described this book as an "outline" for a great mystery. Mystery fans will find this book extremely formulaic and simplistic. The familiar and uninteresting  characters were most disappointing to me: the little old lady who's not  what she seems, the wise-cracking reporter, the bumbling but  well-intentioned police chief, the intelligent young woman trying to put  her past behind her, idiot teenagers. The fact that the little old woman is  an alcoholic is not amusing or charming, though the author thinks it  is.
The plot is contrived to introduce the whole crossword puzzle theme  to the series and to introduce all the characters to us. It holds up well  enough, but can't compensate for the weak characters (including the  killer).
Readers looking for an interesting old lady would do well to try  Heron Carvic's Miss Seeton series instead.
3057445
The plot is very thin with typical poor police work and more focus on the meals furnished to the characters than on the plot.

I would not recommend this book to serious readers of detective or mystery tales.
797456
I'm a fan of the authors' Crawford and Rutledge series.  This is a departure, a presumably stand-alone novel in which a 21-year-old explores his parent's mysterious deaths when he was 17.  Spoilers to follow.  Unfortunately the characters are flimsy, the plot is ridiculous (as far as I could get), the writing is slipshod, and continuity is puzzling.  An example:  we leave the orphaned protagonist with his grandfather at 17, and pick him up again at 21 with the maturity of a 45-year-old, when he discovers that he's fantastically wealthy thanks to savvy investing on the part of his father, who (to confirm the innumerable hints that precede this revelation) was a secret agent.  Son hares off, unlimited credit cards in hand and first class, of course, to explore his real estate property and solve the puzzle of his parents' demise.  That's as far as I got, although I read the  unsatisfactory James Bondy ending.  This was a miss for me.
148070
This is a mildly amusing book at best. The characters are pretty one dimensional and the story thinly predictable. Even the bits that should have been funny where instead rather tired.
4877607
The writing style is flat and reminiscent of a high school assignment.  The characters are one dimensional and the plot crawls along in a predictable fashion.  There are many, many cliches but the most egregious is the "evil military" that is the main antagonist.  The entire British military is a stock, Fascist slave driver; I doubt the author has had any experience with current members of the military.
3300086
This has an artless plot, relies on extremely unlikely coincidence and shows a simplistic understanding of the military and expecially submarines. The "temporary suspension of disbelief" here is more at home in a Little Golden Book.  The characters are rather one-dimensional and hackneyed stereotypes. And frankly, I do agree there is something disrespectful about using an honored American symbol and national historic monument to kill innocent civilians. This book also poorly edited with numerous grammatical and spelling mistakes. There is a reason why it is self-published.

Jim Domnick, a publishing editor in New York
2730014
I am a first time reader of the series and felt there was an over-reliance on established series characters. None of the characters are very bright, so the story ends up being boring. New characters (characters without a reference to past mysteries) are few so the bad guys become quickly obvious. The plot has moral and ethical issues.
377291
What a disappointment. The lackluster plot is all over the place, the narrative is frustratingly unfocused, the police-procedural details boring, the story is just plain mediocre, and I deduced who the chief villain was during is very first scene. Worse, Rhyme and Amelia basically play supporting roles here. This long-winded, suspense-free book plays out as if its author were running on autopilot throughout.
3502995
Although this book is not tritely written, the characters are shallow and the plot is contrived.
2785633
I would categorize this as adequate juvenile literature, much like a Nancy Drew or Judy Bolton story.  Plot:  predictable and a bit silly;  characters:  predictable and shallow; written in a 6th grade vocabulary.  The story is a goofy amalgamation of conspiracy elements all surrounding the myth of the holy grail;  plot elements are fairly easy to guess.  Quite the opposite of a page-turner, this story is perfect for keeping in the bathroom and reading whenever you're in there.  Overall a quick read and quite forgettable.
858220
The series has extremely limited entertainment value. The plot line is simplistic to the point of boredome. The language choices and vocabulary of the characters makes this a good read for someone who is an extremely beginner reader. The plot is tired, very predictable and repetitive. I'm not enthusiastic about this series. Nothing new. Nothing original.

I got it for free on Kindle. I'm deleting it. I definitely won't read any more in this series.
2049938
NO SPOILERS

I've now read the first several books in the Pathfinder Tales line, and I'm sorry to say that Song of the Serpent is the worst of the lot.  The novel has a few interesting ideas, but it's the most "generic fantasy" book in the line, with many somewhat cheesy setting elements seemingly closer to the very high-magic Forgotten Realms than to Golarion.  The plotting is unsatisfactory, with vague mysteries standing in the place of cohesive story-telling.  For almost all of the book, the primary protagonist lacks agency, which makes him a hard character to cheer for. The overall tone is a bit off, with some surprisingly gory scenes mixed into an often lighthearted story, and bits of world lore that just strike the reader as wrong, such as half-orcs being depicted as "not uncommonly cannibals."  The conclusion is overlong and surprisingly boring for what should be a climactic, tension-filled moment.  I don't want to be too uncharitable, as there are some fun scenes here and there and the direction the book takes is definitely unpredictable, which is a plus.  The action scenes are fine, and the dialogue is passable.  Still, on the whole, only completists like me should pick up this one.

SPOILERS

The book is set in Druma, land of the merchant lords known as Kalistocrats.  A thief named Krunzle the Quick is captured by a prominent Kalistocrat and forced to set off on a quest to recover the merchant's daughter, who absconded with a dashing but slimy knight.  In order to ensure Krunzle's loyalty, the Kalistocrat has his personal wizard place a magical torc in the shape of a snake around the thief's neck: the snakelike torc is semi-sentient and able to choke Krunzle into submission should he stray from the path.  This leads to the problem of Krunzle's lack of agency, as he spends almost the entire book as the puppet of this magical device which seems to come from out of nowhere (and is never satisfactorily explained in the novel).  Anyway, Krunzle makes some friends along the way, such as a former slave named Raimeau (who receives an oddly-placed and unnecessary flashback chapter), a troll named Skanderbrog, and a dwarf named Brond.  The "damsel in distress" (Gylanna) is portrayed well as a strong character who is very much her father's daughter.  As Gylanna is rescued midway through the book, the overall plot is actually to retrieve something that was taken along with Gylanna: a mysterious magical item.  The story really starts to break down here, as there's something about an incredibly ancient, incredibly powerful entity buried in a mountain that has led the heroes to this point to free it, etc.  But it's all very vague in the end, with a long, weird ritual that simply ends unsatisfactorily with far more questions than answers.  The book does integrate some Golarion world-lore (and is one of the few novels to this point to have an interest in dwarfs), but much of the book could take place in any generic fantasy land with little change.  Even the main villain, an evil wizard from Tian Xia, is about as cliche as it gets.  So as I said above, this is one to avoid.
684391
I don't like to rag on books I got for free because it's not like I spent any money on them.  Still, the plot of this book is so needlessly complicated that it's silly.  A bunch of presumably hot sorority girls blackmail an annoying guy into dressing like a girl to pose as a pinup girl for their charity calendar.  Because that's a lot easier than just having the hot girls pose for pictures.

The writing leaves a lot to be desired.  Most of it feels more like someone summarizing the scenes rather than developing them into actual scenes.  And there are a lot of silly dialog tags so that someone "declared" or "announced" or "demanded" or a dozen other synonyms for "said."  So overall it's pretty amateurish.  But again it was free so I'm not going to hate on it too much the way some people would.

That is all.
4041748
The plot has potential, and I was caught up at first in the characters, the genial character who is without political guile and succeeds by being the anti-politician, his spectacular wife, etc.  But the villians are too

one dimensional and the heroes are too predictable.  There is one character who might provide potential for the hero to go astray, or at least do some critcal thinking instead of adolescent fantasizing, but she evaporates without any real critical plot development. Way too simplistic.