No thrills, twists or turns (Whistleblower - Tess Gerritsen)

Member Name: Tracy_1127

Product:	Whistleblower - Tess Gerritsen
Date:	11/09/09 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: just awful

I've read quite a few books by Tess Gerritson and really like her work so when someone offered me the loan of this book I took it expecting a really good read. Whistle Blower starts with Victor Holland being chased on a dark rainy night and heading for the road to try and flag down a lift, he gets shot before he makes it but still manages to stumble onto the road in front of a car. The driver of the car, Catherine Weaver, doesn't see him in time and runs into him so she stops and puts him into her car and heads for the nearest hospital.

Victor starts panicking someone is following him along the way and Catherine puts this down to the accident and doesn't really take it seriously until they reach the hospital and find the bullet wound in his shoulder. Who is chasing Victor Holland and how is Catherine Weaver now involved?

This book had all the promise of a normal Tess Gerritsen at that point and then drastically went downhill. I can honestly say that is the only good bit about the entire book, the chance meeting under odd circumstances.

From that point it all gets disjointed and cliched. There's actually no mystery for the reader as to who is after Victor and why, it's blurted out in the first few chapters and there are also no twists and turns you expect from a thriller. The actual storyline is one that's been done to death both before this book and after and the majority of people who've used this storyline have done it far better than Tess Gerritsen has in this book.

I actually found myself flicking to the front of the book to see if this had been written around the 1970s when this type of story was becoming increasingly popular and found that it hadn't, it is copyrighted to Gerritsen in 1992 and published in 2008. I found that hard to believe and wondered if the publishers had even read the book before publishing it last year or if they just assumed because the author is a bestseller it would sell regardless.

Besides the unoriginal storyline there is also the relationship between the characters to gripe about. The two main characters naturally end up in a relationship and this is also very tedious. It is completely contrived and unbelievable and the author seems to have been so determined to make this relationship happen she neglects the main storyline while also doing a very bad job of making us believe they have feelings for each other. The relationship is written in a very stilted and childish way which almost made me stop reading the book altogether. But I don't like to be beaten by a book and always hope a bad book will pick up towards the end.

I can tell you this book doesn't! Not only is there the storyline that's been done so many times we all know the details and outcome but there's also a borrowed element from Terminator in here as well. This element worked in Terminator but will never work again for any other storyline because it has firmly become the territory of Terminator. It didn't work and just added to my irritation with this book.

Some of the other characters are also very one dimensional when they actually play quite a large part of the story and I can honestly say I didn't care one bit about how this all panned out but worse, I knew exactly how it would end and I was right. I could have told you the predictable ending after reading the first few chapters.

Tess Gerritsen usually puts alot of effort into her characters and they feel like real people but she didn't achieve that with a single person in this book and the tedious, contrived and unoriginal storyline just made it a dreadful read.

If my dire warning isn't enough to put you off this is available as a paperback from Amazon for £7.49 or used on Amazon Marketplace for 1p. Personally I wouldn't even pay 1p for it and I'm so glad I borrowed this and didn't buy it. If I'd never read any other Tess Gerritsen that would be my first and last book but as I know this isn't her normal standard of writing I won't let it put me off the author.

I don't recommend this and would prefer to give it no stars but as I have to rate it I'll give it one. A truly abysmal read.

Summary: Not recommended