The Hostage
by W.E.B. Griffin
Copyright: 2006
Pages: 750
Rating: 3/5
Read: Jan. 2 – 16, 2014
Challenge: Eclectic Reader Challenge; TBR Pile Challenge
Yearly count: 3
Format: Print
Source: Personal copy
Blurb: An American diplomat’s wife is kidnapped in Argentina, and her husband murdered before her eyes. She is told her children will be next if she doesn’t tell the kidnappers where her brother is – a man who may know quite a bit about the burgeoning United Nations/Iraq oil-for-food scandal. There is an awful lot of money flying around, and an awful lot of hands are reaching up to grab it, and some of those hands don’t mind shedding as much blood as it takes – even if that blood comes from Charley Castillo…
Review: I have had this book on my shelf since early 2009. I knew it had to make my list for the TBR Challenge if nothing else to at least get it read or otherwise off my shelf as a DNF. I also picked it up first for that challenge because at 750 pages I knew I should get it out of the way immediately if possible.
This is the second in Presidential Agent series. I read the first one, By Order of the President, back in 2008. I knew going into it that I was going to have absolutely no recollection of the characters or storyline from that first book. That always makes me a little apprehensive, but in all honesty, it has no impact on this book. There are a few references to the first book, but for the most part this book reads quite well as a stand-alone.
Overall I was not incredibly impressed by this book. I honestly think that some serious editing could have occurred to cut the page number down to a more reasonable number without missing too much of the story. Looking over the notes I took as I read this book, around the 300 page mark I commented that there was a lot of unnecessary repetition. I feel very strongly that this is very much the case with this book. I would be going along reading only to get to the end of the chapter and Mr. Griffin would have the characters pretty much just sum up everything that just happened in the chapter. Very unnecessary in my opinion and only added to the page count.
The actual storyline was interesting at first, but as the book progressed things kept spiraling and more things were added to the story and I eventually started feeling a little bogged down. And the ending … or should I say, what ending? There are so many questions left hanging that I was a little disgusted. All this lead-up … all 700+ pages of it and no resolution? You mean you want me to read the next 700+ page book in this series to find out the conclusion to this book? No thank you, not at this time.
That pretty much sums up exactly what I felt about this book.
Overall I wouldn’t say it’s bad. It just wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea. Military-esque books are out of my comfort zone. Plus the length was a little bit of an issue for me. But if that’s your thing you’ll probably enjoy this one.
Tales of a Book Addict 