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Dictator (2011)

by Tom Cain(Favorite Author)

3 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0552161462 (ISBN13: 9780552161466)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Corgi

series

Samuel Carver

review 1: It's very difficult for me to detail the flaws in this book without giving away spoilers to the ending. It is not a good book, although, until a dozen or so pages from the end, it was interesting and gripping. The main problem is that the ending, attempting to provide a twist, is merely a tired cliche. Not only is a predictable and overused trope chosen as the best way to conclude the story, but it also destroys interesting characters and renders many of the antagonists' actions retrospectively irrational. I strongly suspected what the ending would be when I was roughly a third of the way through the book. I spent the next 300 pages discovering how illogical that ending would turn out to be, and then I read on in horror as the author managed to deliver a "twist" was both o... morebvious and incongruous with the rest of the novel, the exact opposite of how they're meant to be deployed. The last chapter, an insipid, exposition-strewn conversation between the few survivors of the story, offers no catharsis and merely injects a sense of nausea to the rapidly ascending feeling of bafflement at a promising storyline gone south.There is also the issue of the grossly sexist portrayal of a certain female character, the misrepresentation of psychopathy and the cringeworthy dialogue.Apart from that it's alright.
review 2: I always enjoy Tom Cain's Carver books. They have a lot of action and are very fast paced. This one was set mainly in Africa and dealt with the starvation of a once prosperous country by an insane dictator. There was also a few twists along the way. The only reason I haven't marked this as 4 stars is because of one passage of sickening violence against a woman and her child that I felt was unnecessary and made feel nauseous. less

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