Official Review: Operation - Kill the Queen Sins

[Lest92]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Operation - Kill the Queen Sins" by Bruce W. Dobbins.]

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1 out of 4 stars

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Operation: Kill the Queen Sins, a crime novel by Bruce W. Dobbins, is about Kasin “Queen” Sins, the racketeer whose businesses include drug smuggling, brothels, human trafficking and illegal gambling. Throughout the book, she expands her criminal reach and recruits more employees to further her aims, one of which is a slave-breeding centre located on one of the Channel Islands. The premise of a female crime boss in the United Kingdom is interesting: I wondered how a woman might negotiate the crime underground as a serious competitor in a male-dominated network.

The novel begins with a gunfight in Kasin Sins’ Liverpool mansion. Her rival, Nigel Taylor, sent three assassins to eliminate her. However, the attempt fails and the surviving assassin, Sally Penrose, decides to work for Kasin to spare herself Sins’ torture chambers. With this move begins a long series of recruitment. In the course of the novel, professional killers and ambitious psychopaths join her already sinister organisation. Not satisfied with wealth and a gruesome reputation among her fellow miscreants, Sins plans devastation in London to keep the UK firmly under her thumb. She also exploits Middle Eastern and African refugees by selling them into slavery, her market being fellow crime bosses and depraved rich people.

My synopsis of the story is halting and insubstantial because there honestly was nothing more I could glean from the manuscript. Fiction invites the reader to suspend his or her disbelief in order to enjoy and absorb the writer’s work. However, this book failed to encourage me to do that because there is no real story, style and literary flair. One of the main problems is the disappearing plot; after the first twenty pages, the book becomes an account of gratuitous violence committed by endless cardboard characters. I gave up keeping track of them after the first few Timmy/Tommys and Sarah/Sallys. The author tried so hard to make his characters villainous that they became absurd. Even the main character was too feebly developed to be anything but a cartoon baddie; Kasin Sins is a bimbo who pays sadists to maim and kill for reasons I still fail to understand.

Queen Sins is inauthentic, rambling and poorly written, and this made reading the book agony. The author likes to tell, but he doesn’t show us much except painstaking shooting scenes where he describes in clinical detail which organ ends up with bullets in it. His characters invariably shoot at each other’s breasts. I only mention this as it happens too often not to become farcical. The story petered out long before the end, but the climax the author built up just flatlined. Thus, the book remains unresolved and the reader feels cheated.

Given everything that’s wrong with it, I’ll rate Operation: Kill the Queen Sins 1 out of 4 stars. It’s too puerile, prurient and clumsily written to recommend to anyone. I feel unclean after reading this book.

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Operation - Kill the Queen Sins
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[Alicnim]

The author likes to tell, but he doesn’t show us much except painstaking shooting scenes where he describes in clinical detail which organ ends up with bullets in it. His characters invariably shoot at each other’s breasts.

These 2 sentences made me laugh. So hard, well put and presented. Lovely review, but, I won't be reading this one.

[Lest92]

The author likes to tell, but he doesn’t show us much except painstaking shooting scenes where he describes in clinical detail which organ ends up with bullets in it. His characters invariably shoot at each other’s breasts.

These 2 sentences made me laugh. So hard, well put and presented. Lovely review, but, I won't be reading this one.

Thank you for the positive feedback - I wasn't sure about this review at first. I don't want anyone else to be reading this book I've never seen anything like it before.

[kandscreeley]

I think sometimes people think that the only thing that sells (in books or movies) is violence and sex. So instead of any real substance, they just put a bunch of gory scenes and erotic romances. That sounds like what happened here. Definitely won't be reading this one. Thanks.

[Lest92]

I think sometimes people think that the only thing that sells (in books or movies) is violence and sex. So instead of any real substance, they just put a bunch of gory scenes and erotic romances. That sounds like what happened here. Definitely won't be reading this one. Thanks.

This was exactly what happened here, ad nauseam.

[geoffrey ngoima]

I've always said I like assassin thrillers, but this one seems to have gone so wrong. Thanks for the review, Lest92.

[KeriCraven]

I love a good book where there is an action scene in the beginning. Or any book that doesn't take too long to jump into the action. Thank you for your review.

[Steph K]

This one sounds like quite a mess. Definitely not for me.

[The Researcher]

Nice review! Thanks for giving a warning , I am definitely not going to read this book.

[Quinto]

Woo! What a review. Iam glad wasn't reading this...

[Edgeona]

Story about crime, a lady thriving in male dominating world of crime, she is the Queen of crime always involving in chaos and exchange of bullets, it's thrilling, action packed-would give 3 out of 4

[Kalin Adi]

Based on your observations, this jejune story deserves that rating. Too bad some authors stay fixed on making the antagonist a villain and what they get is to make him irrational and irrelevant. In fact, the idea of using a female character to lead in a man's world was intriguing. Too bad the story wasn't well developed. Thanks for the review.

[deans]

I like this story about the crime but there is something lacked in the story can give more excitement for the readers

[inaramid]

Ah, the old "telling but not showing" mistake that some authors tend to commit. I was initially happy to see a female character in the lead here, especially in a role that typically goes to a macho, badass male. Too bad it didn't work out.