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Loading... Blood Line (2014)by John J. Davis
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When a simple home invasion turns out to be not so simple, Ron Granger must put aside his quiet rural life and return to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Aided by his brilliant wife, Valerie, and resourceful teen daughter, Leecy, Ron must quickly decide who to believe among the calculating opportunists, shrewd criminals, and power-hungry rival agencies racing to possess the technology that will change modern warfare forever. But when Leecy is kidnapped, Ron and Val must choose between the mission and a rescue. With time quickly running out, Ron only knows one thing: When you can't trust anyone else, trust your family. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature American literature in English American fiction in English 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The first part is the contents, of the book itself, the story. When I look at it, I think it is not so good. And I'll tell you why.
The idea of two retired spies, living a quiet life with their teenage daughter that gets kidnapped is good. Especially because the reason for the kidnap is not their past, but something in their present. (Unexpected and believable.)
So far the good. Where I think it turns bad, is where the teenager comes into the story. Don't get me wrong: she has all the characteristics of a real life teenager: sees no danger, jumps into situations head over heels, does not listen when spoken to or do what is asked.
But.... what teenager knows (untrained!) to do just the right things when she and her parents are on the run for dangerous men? Her very experienced parents have not ime to train her and it appears she is a natural. Not only when getting the go-bags from their home, but also when she really is kidnapped. She count steps, tracks time, lets herself fall, all things even trained spies may forget when under stress. Yet she is as cool as glacier ice.
The parents play out the situation, putting aside the official agency that should apprehend the bad guys. The descriptions of the violence used, the sheer inhuman coolness of the mother when her daughter is kidnapped, the language that feels 'forced' for some reason.... All these things made that I shrug my shoulders about this book (at best) or get annoyed with it (at worst).
But.... there's more to this book.
I really wonder if the editor used something like 'Google-edit', if you know what I mean. As a recreational reader (non-native Englsih reader) I got very upset by the many mistakes made in abbreviation of words.
In elementary school we already learn, how to abbreviate words, what rules there are when it is neccessary.
First: if you can avoid it, you should. So... give the editing program orders to avoid abbreviations under all circumstances.
Second: if you can't avoid it, look at the rules there are to do so.
I've looked up the rules for English, because I wanted to be sure that I was thinking correctly about the things I read...
For example: ba-na-na is the right way to cut a banana language-wise into pieces. I don't think anyone would ever think of doing it like ban-an-a, after the rules were taught.
Well, here's a small selection of the abbreviations I found in this book:
min-utes
smil-ing (multiple times, at least usage is conequently)
did-n't
sec-onds
build-ing
How-ells'
an-other
par-ents and so on and so forth
It got me really angry. Felt like the editor did a quick job, just for the money, in between more important things to do. And that's not how I think a book should be treated, how readers should be treated.
The bad editing job has not had any influence on the rating. ( )