1 out of 4 stars
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Drs. Chance Taylor and Charles Brown are planning to enter a road race from Moscow to Bejing. Before they even arrive, though, the two nuclear scientists are captured by Al-Qaeda. Al-Sadr, a well-known terrorist, orders them to make suitcase bombs on fear of death. The two scientists are believed to be dead after the ship they were travelling on sunk. However, a conspiracy theorist who works for the CIA, Hank, stumbles across a plot to bring nuclear bombs to the US. He belives the doctors have been captured and forced to use their skills to assemble weapons of mass destruction. Will Hank be able to prove that this isn't just another of his wild theories? Will Chance and Charles be rescued? Will the plot to bomb the US be stopped?
Dangerous Journey by Clark Selby is a novel in the Crime/Mystery/Thriller/Horror genre. It's just shy of 150 pages (depending on the format of the book.) There is a definite military thrust to it, but it isn't so over the top as to not be enjoyed by those that know nothing of the armed forces.
The plot of the story is very intriguing, although not extremely unique. The author sprinkles in a bit of romance here and there, just to keep things interesting. I also enjoyed some of the local characters that the author uses to advance the story. For example, a band of gypsies in Romania help to locate the two doctors. They even tell the fortune of one of the agents searching for the scientists. This added something a little bit different as well as keeping the story from being too intense.
Sadly, that's the end of the good news. There was quite a bit that I found that could use some improvement in this novel. The very first thing I noticed was the sheer number of grammatical errors littering the pages. From using its instead of it's or there instead of they're, to missing words, to changing tenses in the middle of a sentence, to switching from third person to first or second person, to missing quotation marks. You name it, I saw it. This was a huge distraction for me, and it definitely took away from what could have been a good plot. Let me provide an example of how the book reads. “As Chance and Charles sit waiting for any information on the minivan. Charles was visible upset, he told Chance they got to find those last two bombs, do you realize how much damage they could do and how many people could be killed and wounded?”
There was also an issue with repetition within the story. For the most part, readers are not idiots. There is no need to say the same thing three ways. This lengthens the story unnecessarily and takes away from other details that need to be included. We would be told that there was a helicopter incoming. Then one of the characters would state that there was a helicopter coming. Then, we would be told that there was a sound of the helicopter blades coming from a distance. Finally, the helicopter would land. It was just a bit too much, especially as it kept occuring.
The passage of time in this novel was also very unclear for me. The novel is (mostly) in the third person perspective, and each chapter would be of a different character. In one chapter and for one character, weeks would pass. The next chapter would consist of another character and a couple of days would pass. None of the chapters were related to each other timewise. Therefore, I really don't know exactly how everything fit together. Maybe there are some that would be okay with this, but it irritated me. I want to be able to see the big picture and piece everything together. That was impossible here.
Unfortunately, I have to rate Dangerous Journey 1 out of 4 stars. There is potential in this novel. There are parts of the story that are interesting, and I like the thought behind the novel. Hopefully with a good editor and a number of rewrites, I can change my score. For now, though, I can't recommend this book for anyone.
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Dangerous Journey
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