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MEMORIAL DAY
by Vince Flynn
Pocket Books, August 2005
416 pages
6.99GBP
ISBN: 0743450663


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This one is a war of attrition on several fronts. I like thrillers. I like thrillers reflecting what's going on in the world at the moment, so Vince Flynn's MEMORIAL DAY should have been a winner for me. Instead I found myself staring at it and trying to wish it into some sort of shape.

Apparently Flynn's first book TERM LIMITS was self-published and he got into the public eye by having an eye for the marketing opportunity. I don't like to pigeonhole every self-pubbed book, but we get a fair few of them through here, and most need drastic editing to turn what are often good ideas into a workable novel.

A lot of self-pubbed writers don't think they need their precious prose touched. Wrong. On the evidence of this, Flynn has taken the worst of the self-pubbed writer's faults through into mainstream publishing. There's a damn good story in here, but it needs a major edit and rewrite. And considering this is his sixth book, that's depressing.

The book stars CIA superman Mitch Rapp, who spends a lot of the first hundred or so pages of the book elsewhere. And when he does appear he naturally seems to be able to save the universe in 45 seconds.

The plot idea is good -- a major terrorist attack is planned for Memorial Day, and Rapp has to stop it. So he leads special forces into Pakistan to storm an al-Qaeda stronghold. They discover a load of evidence that points to freighters on their way to US ports with Washington as the ultimate target.

This information is sent to CIA HQ and it looks like Mitch and Co really have saved the universe. But this book is 500+ pages long and of course it's not as simple as all that.

The main problem with MEMORIAL DAY is its total and absolute lack of tension. At times it felt like wading through treacle as Flynn treated us to a rundown on boys' toys in excessive detail. I can't speak for the boys, but do they really want every cough and spit of every plane and weapon used? Yes, yes, we can see lots of research has been done, but can we have some action, please?

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, September 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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