Red Herring by Leonard DiGregorio
A Mystery/Thriller, Independently Published in 2020, 277 Pages
What I Didn’t Like:
- Grammatical errors. A few misspellings, some punctuation I’d change, and a missing quotation mark. Nothing huge, but taken together it could be distracting.
- Telling vs showing. I felt like I was watching the action unravel instead of experiencing it. It felt flat and lacking emotion. I wanted to feel more connected to the action or feel an emotion with the characters instead of being told they were feeling them.
- I’m never a fan of using people or public events that date a story. This could be happening now … except that it can’t be because they used the name of the last US president as president. It’s silly, I know, but it makes me feel like there’s no inherent danger because it already happened.
What I Did Like:
- Chapters starting with the news story or headline worked. It gives you an idea of how these events are being perceived by people not in the story and keeps you apprised of what’s going on in the world at large.
- Characters. In general I do like these characters. They’re people I feel like you wouldn’t mind following for multiple books and they have a decent connection to each other.
- The controversial ending. I won’t spoil it but I will say it sparked an interesting conversation about the difference between terrorism and vigilantism. I like books that make me think and I like books that take risks. This was risky, for sure.
Who Should Read This One:
- Fans of politically driven thrillers that aren’t bothered by occasional errors.