Reviews for The Breach

The average rating for The Breach based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-04-20 00:00:00 Peter Klinger This was a totally fun but also ludicrous book. The story has so many twists and turns, especially at the end, that after I finished I tried to puzzle out the loopiness. Then I gave up trying to understand because the plot required so much suspension of disbelief that I might as well have been walking on air. Let's go back to the fun part! Travis Chase goes on what he thought would be a peaceful hike in the Alaskan wilderness. One day he finds an airplane that had crashed in the woods. He goes to try and help the victims, but he finds a strange scene inside the plane: It looks like some kind of government or military operation, and there was a high-ranking politician on board. What did Travis just find? And why wasn't there a rescue operation under way? Thus begins a thrilling, action-packed adventure that continues until the last page. Seriously, this book was non-stop action all the way to the end. I've never said this before, but I needed a little more denouement. This was Patrick Lee's first novel, and I picked it up because I had really enjoyed his 2014 thriller Runner. His craft has improved since The Breach. Aside from the loopy plot, Lee has a writing tic that bugs me: he overuses the word hell. It seemed that every other page, sometimes twice in the same paragraph, had a variation of "dangerous as hell," "sure as hell," "what the hell," "why the hell," and "exaggerated all to hell." It's a lazy and cliched form of writing, and once I noticed it, it irritated me as hell. (Ha! See what I did there?) But this was still an enjoyable read, and just like Runner, I gobbled it up in less than a day. I plan on reading more Patrick Lee books, especially when I want a novel that's fun as hell.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-03-04 00:00:00 Andrew Tomilson I read this book because David Goyer is adapting it to film. Reading this book reminded me of The Onion's accusations that Fast & Furious was written by a 5-year-old child, because that's the only logical explanation for the illogical sequences and stupendously trite tropes in that film, just as it is the only logical explanation for what happens in this book. It has a main character who is a nobody with a troubled past, thrust into a huge government cover-up when he finds the President's wife, dead (WOW!!!!!). The character later receives a chapter-ending-cliffhanger private call from the President himself (WOW!!!!!!!!!!). The chapter literally ends with, "[who was on the phone?] Richard Garner. The President of the United States." This is how a chapter ends in a real book for adults. Then there is a mysterious rip in space-time that is described as looking exactly as a rip in space-time has looked since the SciFi channel got a CGI department, all the way through those seen in Valve's Portal 2. There are some mysterious devices whose purposes are so generic and uninteresting, and whose applications can be seen miles away (this gun heals! IT ISNT KNOWN TO REVIVE THE DYING - Will they use it on someone who is dying??? This thing duplicates matter! WE WILL NEVER USE IT ON A HUMAN BEING - Will they use it on a human being?????), that they really ought not have bothered. There is a setpiece in the beginning of the third act that is so monumentally insane, that the zero repercussions that follow it are more disconcerting than the terrifying violence it invokes seemingly for the sake of thrilling the readers. The characters seem to lack any deductive capabilities, finally coming to conclusions after dozens (and, in some cases, tens of thousands) of people die; conclusions that the reader reached as soon as the subject was broached, making the reader feel smarter than the all-knowing Whisper device the characters so desperately seek. One character retrieves a healing device while hemorrhaging blood from an escape attempt, only to hold the device and wonder what he'll do about the trail of blood he's about to leave. He then leaves a profuse blood trail and heals himself later. I am glad I wrote this review. It was the best part of reading this book. Watch the movie. Maybe they'll cast Markie Mark in it and everyone is pissed at first but then they see it anyway and who cares. It can't be worse than this.