Occasionally Exciting
593783
Which got it the second star.  Other than that, the hero, who's supposed to be a master of disguise and crime gets almost everything wrong; his only skill seems to be at physical violence.  Most of which is completely unconvincing - but occasionally exciting nonetheless.

So, the drawbacks.  The "hero's" character is flat and undeveloped; there is little to no character interaction; the rest of the characters are stick figures or comic book preposterosities, for me, the "narrative drive" some find in it drops dead every time we get a flashback to the backstory that the writer says provides the "hero's" motivation (and every time I had to exercise major will power to crank up my suspension of disbelief);  all the heists planned and executed by these supposed heist meisters are really, really, really stupid....

And, worse, book seemed a not very clever pastiche: of Richard Stark, of many flailing but big selling thriller writers, and most of all, the TV show Burn Notice.  The narrator is forever giving us the inside scoop (which never feel either "inside" or "scoopish") about things "real criminals" know and do.

And yet worse: the writer doesn't seem to know anything.  He makes a fuss over Chevy Suburbans, but doesn't know how much they weigh.  The panoply of drugs being taken by the two crooks who start off the action seems to be cobbled together from a google search.  The hero, despite his only apparent skill being physical violence, doesn't know how to make an Uzzi shoot in bursts.  The writer talks about a marsh for three or four pages, then refers to it as bog.  The writer thinks you can hear a CPU "beginning to work". He thinks .357 slugs are "fat as a quarter."  And he thinks an arch villain called "The Wolf" is something other than ridiculous.

So how does the book get to be 300 pages?  Endless Burn Noticy pseudo-info about the workings of the crook-cop axis of mediocrity.  Here is perhaps the most benign example: "The police have ways of figuring that [stuff] out."  Yeah, right, sure.  Coupled with endless misplaced specificity. For example, for no particular reason, he gives us what he thinks is the inside dope on how cops get through locked doors, and then on silencers, rightly termed he informs us, suppressors.  But he fails to distinguish between sound suppressors and flash suppressors, so I felt condemned to permanent state of ignorance.

At one point our hero says, "I'm the ghostman. Where's the Wolf?"  Why, oh, why didn't the other guy answer: "Out back, gnawing on a dead woodchuck."
4041474
Tends to get repetitive, otherwise a good read
62309
Doesn't score too high on the prose side, but the action is compelling.
311232
This is an interesting novel with some unusual twists.  I would not call it a great novel but entertaining nevertheless.  It has some tense adventure that will keep you interested but the premise is a little weak.
4148151
Somewhat predictable, but with enough twists to maintain the reader's interest.
11934
Light reading, easy, enjoyable but not so terribly unexpected activities and outcomes.
4561870
I was quite surprised at the turn of a certain character. There were times where this leisurely read kept me turning the pages.
3251535
There are times when you can almost taste the salt air and almost hear the gulls wheeling over the grey waters outside the old clapboard inn.  Almost.

This is a fun and light book.  The Heroine is inconsistent, and there are occasional plot issues and editorial issues.  Despite these flaws, the author creates enough charm to draw the reader into her island community.  Sometimes the reader has to do some of the work, but it happens.

There are several reviews dealing with the exceptionally bad and occasionally criminal decision making of our heroine.  Those reviews are correct and these qualities distract from the story.  One hopes our heroine will be more rational and realistic in future books.

Finally, there is the food problem.  The frequency and detail of the heroine's binge eating is a bit over the top.
2082964
Well done, engaging, a few pleasant suprise twists, and unfortunately an ending that is far too often real in life.
1434145
lively characters with lots of  plot variations going on at times almost seems too busy with detail so that you skip sections to get to the action.
2866737
I enjoyed the science of this novel. The human activities are often over-explained, setting a tone that the reader needs a lot of help to keep up.
1659479
I like reading books that have characters with a little some Thing extra.  And this book has several such characters.
1118386
I did enjoy this book pretty well. The story moved along apace, without being really thrilling or suspenseful. There's quite a bit of espionage subtlety, like the difference between MI 5 and MI6, and interesting historical context-- the Cold War, the earliest energy crisis, labor strikes, elections of people whose names I know only from Beatles songs--but  all is probably better appreciated by a native.theres a lot here for discussion groups to debate and discuss: ethical, moral, sexual dilemmas; not to mention the novelty of a male author writing in a female voice.
3847418
ACTION, ACTION, ACTION AND MIXED IN IS A LITTLE ACTION.
4944585
entertaining....but sometimes slows down a wee bit to much...but just manages to keep your interest
3140571
While the plot was fairly easy to anticipate while reading, it's the characters that made me keep reading.  The two main characters are not as fully developed as I would like, but they are fun to read and very plausible.
2499401
Sometimes it feels a little sensationalized or padded with the authors imagination, but all in all a fun read -