Strategic Moves Book

I picked up this book last week when I visited the library. The blurb looked interesting enough for some light popcorn reading. Plus, I was lulled by the fact that Woods has written so many books in the series. New York Times bestseller, award-winning, blah blah blah. Boy oh boy was I ever wrong.

This is a terribly written book. The dialogue is so wooden that it feels like the author wrote this thing by taking a 2x4 and beating his computer to death with it. I'm not exaggerating. He probably took a sheet of 1/2 plywood, set it on top of his Macbook Pro, and then jumped up and down on it until the computer surrendered.

I just lost two hours of my life. I could've spent that two hours taking a nap or baking a cake or even just staring at the wall. Any of those choices would've been more productive.

The characters in this book are as one-dimensional and flatter than a pancake made without any rising agent (such as baking powder or baking soda, though, if you're going to use baking soda, you probably need to add a touch of lemon juice too--I don't know why, but it usually works). At least you can eat the pancake, flat or not. You can't eat this book, unless you have some weird paper deficiency going on.

In fact, you know that Flat Earth Society? The characters in this book are too flat for them. That kid in 7th grade band class who played the clarinet and was always flat? You got it; these characters would make him seem like Yo Yo Ma. Yeah, yeah. I know Yo Yo Ma doesn't play the clarinet. He plays the cello, but the metaphor still kind of works. So sue me if you don't think it works.

Seriously, the characters randomly drift through the plot like automatons. Need to have some sex? Let's introduce the hot young widowed aunt. Need to inject some mystery? Let's randomly kill off the aunt, but don't have the hero react in any way to the fact that his new bedmate is now dead. Let's fly to Spain now and pick up a mysterious arms-dealer. Oh, the arms-dealer has just jumped out of the plane by backing up his Mercedez through the cargo door? Oh, yawn. Nobody reacts.

I mean, Jar-Jar Binks suddenly appearing in this book would've been a drastic improvement, and I hated Jar-Jar Binks. 60 seconds of him onscreen in that stupid movie Lucas inflicted on the world and I wanted to drive a tank over that rubbery nitwit and then run it back and forth until the treads ground him into organic compost. What was Lucas thinking? Was he thinking? Is Lucas even alive, or is that just some kind of Lucas-looking robot built by the geeks at Lucas Arts?

I can't even articulate what the plot really is, despite reading the book. I think my brain refused to process it. Stuff happens. Stone Barrington has meals at restaurants, gets handed big checks, flies his plane, drinks expensive wines, has random dialogue with CIA agents, sleeps with the hot widowed young aunt, beats himself over the head with a 2x4 (oh, wait, that doesn't happen, but I wish it would have)...