Review by rhendel -- East Wind, 2nd edition by Jack Winnick

[rhendel]

[Following is a volunteer review of "East Wind, 2nd edition" by Jack Winnick.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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East Wind by Jack Winnick is the first installment in the Lara Edmond and Uri Levin series. In this book, FBI Agent Lara Edmond and Mossad Agent Uri Levin are paired together to investigate suspicious messages from suspected terrorist organizations. When a large-scale bombing attack occurs in Los Angeles, Agents Edmond and Levin must race against time to prevent further attacks and take down the terrorists.

Overall, I enjoyed reading East Wind. Although I found parts of it fairly predictable, it was suspenseful, engaging, and well-paced. Having read all of the other books in the series, I think this is one of the best storylines. I also think it’s important for readers to start with this book because it provides a lot of background information and character development that is lacking in the rest of the series. While the book is largely about the two agents working to take down the terrorist cell, there is a romantic storyline that helps provide a respite from the constant heaviness of the crime-fighting.

The thing I like best about reading the Lara and Uri series, and East Wind in particular, is how the author is able to quickly capture the reader in the first few pages. I always find myself trying to figure out how the story will end, and most of the time I’m wrong! I read a lot of crime and thriller novels, so I’m usually good at predicting major plot twists or endings, but there were a few moments in East Wind that caught me off guard.

One aspect I struggled with while reading East Wind was the overwhelming amount of technical jargon and detailed explanations about insignificant plot points. For instance, early on in the book, several pages are focused on describing the specifics of making a bomb. While some of it is interesting, it’s unnecessary and I don’t think the story would have been lacking anything had that section not included. In fact, I found myself skimming through a lot of the detailed explanations because they were confusing and too technical for the way the rest of the book was written.

Overall, I rate East Wind 3 out of 4 stars. I found the story to be very engaging and suspenseful but would have preferred less technical jargon and military descriptions. I did not find any typos in the book, so it was edited very professionally. I would recommend this book to readers who like suspenseful spy novels or crime thrillers. Readers should start with this book in the series so that they don’t miss out on important character backstories and development. The book uses a lot of derogatory language when referring to Muslims and Jews, so anyone sensitive to that may not enjoy reading this book.

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East Wind, 2nd edition
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

[Mariana Figueira]

Thank you for the very thorough review!