Calhoun: Sacrifice

Author: Joe Mansour
Genre: Action Thriller Suspense
Book Rating: 5
Personal Rating: 4

It's been a while since I really didn't like a book.  But here I am again.  This book started of with a fairly decent opening sequence.  It seemed like it was going somewhere and then...  It just didn't move anywhere.  And the lead character I just couldn't sympathise with.  He was just annoying on all accounts.  I just didn't like him.  And even more so that his parents are from my home country.  That's about the only win I'm giving this book.

Firstly we spend a good chunk of the book with the guy denying what he has to do.  A page or two I'm down with that, but as the percentage kept rising on my kindle progress bar I was starting to get worried he would ever get on with it.  He's supposed to have anger issues but he just seems to always be angry instead of becoming angry.  Maybe I'm weird but it was more like he was constantly bitter than angry.  I can go along with someone who needs anger management but even people in anger management are more like time bombs.  They have their good moments.  Calhoun was just consistently bitter.  It just made you want to jump into the pages and punch him.  

Once it did finally get moving it still didn't quite move.  I feel the anger rising, no this can't be real okay I have to do this.  I feel the anger rising... and the circle continues.  An army veteran permanently injured with anger issues.  There's so much depth to be had here, but the character was so flat.  He hit one note and that was the only note he sang for the whole book.  

The writing wasn't that great either. Pick a name and stick to it.  Honestly you cant call someone mark in one paragraph and in the very next paragraph call them Hendrix.  Um  is there another person. This last name first name nonsense went on in the second half of the book so much I honestly had to reread it and still there are some parts I just gave up on.  I don't have a problem with interchanging names but more than once on the same page with no real reason other than the author just wanted too.  I've never in my 30 years of reading encountered someone who's done this and I can honestly say there's good reason for it.  It's confusing.  I genuinely thought there were more people in some sense then there were and I had to actively slow down and take notes almost to sort out who's name interchanged with what and force my brain to use just one name for the two clear it all up.  

And then the deaths.  I love good shoot em up stuff.  But in this book it was like seriously how stupid can you be.  Just shoot and kill everyone?  If he would've just talked to the first guy he killed he could've got them on his side.  They were not the type of mercenaries to be down with sacrificing a child.  And even a blind person could tell they had no clue what he was talking about.  Oh right he has anger issues so I'm supposed to by into the fact that he's just gonna shoot up people.  The only thing saving this whole killing stuff was the fact that the fight scenes were one of the only well writing things in this book.  Excellent even.

Basically I felt like this whole book was designed to make me feel sorry for the hero not because of his tragedy but because of his anger issues and that was by far the most annoying thing about him.  Failing to sell me on that well the book just sorta sunk.  And the ending with the little girl, seriously I've dealt with 3year olds that aren't nearly as annoying and clueless as this seven or eight year old was.  Seriously you're in a burning house and you're striking up conversation instead of trying to get out and live.  I doubt any child of that age, especially one smart enough to remember their parents told them not to give their address out to strangers, would be that ridiculously stupid.  It was on par with the whole shoot first ask questions not at all thing.

And I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing with the Muslim, and the old guy with his clear hate towards Calhoun, and I'm sure there was one more incident I can't remember.  It's like words of wisdom are being sprouted out and hate spewed for what purpose?  It was filler really Calhoun didn't change not one bit from his first page to the last yet these few pages with the two characters I can remember seemed like they were there for some sort of lesson to be learned.  The fact that none of the characters seemed changed just kind made me go.... hmmm.

So writing not so good.  Irritance level high.  Lead character only knows one emotion and doesn't grow one bit in either a good or bad direction.  The suspense about the sacrifice stuff, totally destroyed by the ending of the book, just more of the same for this occult stuff.  Disappointing really.  Senseless killing didn't work because the character doing it was just an idiot.  And not clearly defining a rule guideline for first and last names when talking about characters made it confusing.  And if the character himself wasn't moving the plot didn't move too much either it just kinda floated along and then tried to compensate with the action at the end.  It just didn't have enough umph or enough mystery or character depth to wow me into the next hemisphere.  I'd seriously have problems recommending this book.  Which is a shame because after the opening, i was really really wanting to read it but spent most of the book, well angry and irritated, sucking my teeth and rolling my eyes.  None of which make for good reading.  Not at all.