It has kind of an odd structure. There is the big story, the main story, that consumes most of the book, but that all gets wrapped up and there is still a big chunk of book left. So now we have a smaller story that rolls along on much smaller scale, and a much smaller time frame. I'm not quite sure what the purpose was of having this second story in there.
The story was pretty solid, but I still found a few nits to pick.
- The title character consumes a tiny fraction of the book. He isn't very interesting, but he does play a key part.
- There is a big shootout scene where the bad guy sticks his head out of a hole in the roof of his vehicle, takes aim with an fully automatic assault rifle and commences firing at the cops. One cop, the same one who hates our newspaper man, is yelling at the bad guy through a bull-horn. One would think he could see the bad guy emerge from the van with a long gun and would take cover. But no, he continues to stand there and yell as the bad guy takes aim and then shoots him full of holes. I can see getting shot if you are unaware of someone aiming at you, or you are exposed and don't have time to take cover. But this just smacks of boneheadedness. Of course, it has already been established that he is an unpleasant person, so maybe this is just deserts (desserts?).
- Towards the end of the book, in the first paragraph of chapter 38 actually, there are a couple of errors regarding sailboats: ". . .set the autopilot for 3:39. Magnetic. The twin Lehmann diesels purred . . .". 3:39 with a colon is a time. Autopilots want a direction, which would be from zero to 359 degrees, with no colon. And I have never heard of a sailboat with twin engines.
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