The Forces of evil winning never makes a good ending.
585657
The Most Wanted man was not supported enough bu the people who promised to assist them. The Forces of evil winning never makes a good ending.
4343669
If it weren't for bad luck,  they'd have no luck at all.  I read the entire book thinking things would have to get better,  but they never did.  This narrative is told by Julie, who watches her baby brother die.  After nursing her father through a very long illness (presumably TB), he dies also.  She marries the first man who courts her,  and after the wedding,  she and her husband move closer to his work.  In exchange for room and board, Julie cooks and cleans for the unpleasant old man who owns the house they share with him.  The old man dies after getting severely burned in a grease fire.  Hank loses his job and there's a baby on the way.  A terrible rain storm causes the creek to rise and the house gets flooded. The flood destroys a large portion of their food supply in the cellar,  the corn crib and the smokehouse.  It knocks over the privy. The cow dies.  Julie gets a fever right after delivering the baby prematurely.  She has no milk.  The baby hangs on for a time,  but is too weak to survive.  Just when the hens might start laying more eggs a weasel gets into the chicken house and kills them all.  The the old man's stepfamily sends a lawyer to collect back rent.  No one cares that Julie and Hank repaired and restored the house and outbuildings after the flood. They leave the cabin with only what they brought with them and start walking back to where they came from.  There is no actual ending to this book.  It just stops.  It's as if the author forgot to finish it,  or the publisher left out the last chapter.  This is a book about the harsh realities of rural life in 1899.  There is very little joy, only drudgery day in and day out. They just keep slogging along, enduring one tragedy after another.  By the time I finished reading this book I was worn out.
2214769
Unlikeable characters making bad life choices. The promise of a surprise twist ending went unfulfilled. The second star is for kicking the Catholic Church while it's down.
553008
The reader really doesn't know who to like in this story.  The characters are really not likeable people and the ending really leaves you unsatisfied.  You hope that the good guy succeeds, but it doesn't seem like there will be any guarantee of that.
2995754
This book had reminded me of the bloody mess of Dead Snow movie, in that one it was a group of friends fighting Nazi zombies.  This book, the bad guys are some seriously fugly scary creatures that the author did very well at describing.  However there is no hope in this book for the characters that you invested two hours or so it takes to read.  I could feel the blistering cold, the terror, the hunger, the wildness flight of survival but no happy ending.  In the end, moral of the lesson, don't go to cabins up in the mountains especially when it is snowing.
4436476
It's already been said, but I figured I would add my two cents worth. - I kept waiting for the good guy to show up. - By the time I got three-quarters of the way I finally realized that there was not going to be a good character. I can be exceptionally stubborn about not giving up on a book, but this one stretched my limits. The brothers are evil, serving an evil wizard, fighting for an ignorant self-serving moron of a king. The sorceress elven lady, who is supposed to be on the side of the "good guys" ignores the horrible acts of evil committed by one of the brothers because he is just so adorable and innocent at heart. It's like the mom of a serial killer saying, "he was always such a good boy" after brutally murdering 100 people, half of them small children.  These are the book's heroes? Maybe it is our modern cynical society that draws people to read about evil triumphing over good, or at the very least mostly evil triumphing over totally evil. I prefer my fantasy a bit more clean. I don't mind flawed heroes, but absolutely evil ones are just too much. If I really want to read dark evil over evil stories I'll read the newspaper.
1803566
The way this story was written defies any logic. Apparently, Jesus returns to a world suffering from a global government that is trashing Judeo-Christian values and the only nation to stand-up to the Anti-Christ (in the name of a power hungry African bully) is Israel. Israel proceeds to airlift all the "Christian brothers" to this nation, the size of Delaware, to keep them safe from the hordes of soldiers from all the nations of the world lining up on Israel's borders. Jesus, in the guise of a dungaree wearing, back-packing stranger, apparently causes the global government leaders to suffer heart attacks and everybody is saved. The author refers the readers to the Book of Revelations as the basis for his story. It just doesn't work. Don't waste your time.
2608294
One too many weird, not clever, twists and an unsatisfying ending. The story was actually pretty well written until it got close to the end. Then it was like something went wrong with the writer and the ending was choppy and almost unbelievable. Lots of truly sick evil people for characters.
3513104
Daniel Silva always directs his novels to the most up to date world chaos, and, understandably, offers little solution.
1724051
This is the worst  story ever.  I keep hoping it would turn the corner but it never does. The suthor must be a very sad person
4934856
This was one of the most depressing books I've ever read. I kept expecting something good to come about for any of the characters - but they all were beaten down repeatedly. The "hope" in the last paragraph is tempered by knowledge of the reality of Carl's situation.
4632920
Dreadful ending. I personally enjoyed the twists and turns of the stories - but the ending just did a terrible job of justifying the actions of the parents. In fact, one would've expected the message to at least be positive - justice was dealt, the sister was freed - but none of that happened. I have nothing against a sad ending, but the message was just wrong.
4534357
The bad guys die, the good guys die and the precious dogs wander off to a tragic life (if nobly begun) and sure death. I loved the first third but from there long long long long passages accomplishing nothing. Should have been cut by almost half.
4107080
This is a book about the creation, by renegade government employees, of a unit of secret police in the US. Unfortunately, while the secret police manufacture evidence, and kill people without trial, the forces of good turn around and do the same damned thing.  I admit it might seem incredible, but I think the best way to take down renegade units of the government would be to do it with loyal units. If anyone just covers it up, by whatever means, justice is not served properly.

The first 50 pages of the book don't draw you in very well, and the last 50 are very disappointing; the pretexts are moderately unbelievable, and we are being set up the whole book to care for a character, who never does seem to have a good plan, only to see him die toward the end.
3892454
Here's a novel where the reader cannot determine who the villain is until more than halfway through. Truth be told. there are really no good guys but one person stands out worse than all the rest!
2669869
The unbelievable failure of the protagonist  to recognize a major villain before a deadly showdown dashed my hopes for a satisfying thriller.  Most of the characters are unlikable, and  the plot features too much foreshadowing except for the aforementioned identity of the really bad guys. The Good Neighbor is not good.
2441297
This novel starts out tranquilly as a group of friends and family gather for a christening at a Swiss farmhouse. Everything about it is idyllic, from the flowing green grass to the immaculate cleaness of the house itself. One of the visitors notices a black board in one of the window frames that clashes with the color of the house. He asks why it's there and an elderly grandfather begins the tale of the Black Spider. During the 1400's the valley was ruled by a succession of cruel knights and one of the worst was Hans von Stofflen who treats his serfs as slaves, beating them and cursing them in their destitution. After building a castle for him, he commands them to transplant 100 full-grown beech trees from another site to line a shady boulevard for him. There is no way to do this. That's when the Devil shows up and of course says he could do what is required easily-- for a price!  He wants a newborn baby. Of course this puts the peasants into a dilemma. To trust in God to offer some method of salvation or to take the quicker, easier way of Satan. One woman, Christine, takes it upon herself to agree to the Devil's terms. The village goes along with her decision in the false hope that after the trees are planted they can doublecross the Prince of Lies. Gotthelf was way ahead of his time in terms of portraying the mob mentality of the villagers. They are petrified until Christine takes action and becomes an easy scapegoat. In case anything goes wrong, they can say it was her fault. You feel sorry for them because they, (pardon the cliche), are between a rock and a hard place. If they don't finish the boulevard, their lord will take his vengance on them, if they do they have to give up one of their own. When the black spider is unleashed by Satan to punish the villagers, it seems as though God is taking a hand in it too. They fear the knight more than God.  The book seems very reminescent of the Bible tales in which the Jews would fall out of line and then God would punish them for their transgressions. They would renounce their evil ways for a generation or two and then it was the same cycle over again. Once the spider enters the picture the horror truly begins because it can appear anywhere. You cannot run from it. You cannot harm it. Its touch is death. It's a shame this book is out of print. Hunt it down. It's great.