Glenn MeadeRecensioni
Autore di Snow Wolf
Recensioni
The Romanov Conspiracy: A Thriller di Glenn Meade
William Massey, periodista de investigación, descubre unos documentos escondidos en la antigua casa de su difunto padre. El hallazgo no sólo revela que la muerte de su padre no fue un suicidio, como le hicieron creer, sino que, además, fue un miembro activo de la CIA que desapareció en Rusia durante una operación secreta. La investigación le lleva a desenmascarar un trama urdida más de cuarenta años atrás y que aún permanece en el más estricto secreto.
The story takes place in 1953. Eisenhower was the new president and Stalin was the increasingly deranged dictator of the Soviet Union. A medical report on Stalin was leaked to top officials in Washington, and these officials began to imagine horrors if Stalin continued to hold office.
Two CIA agents are sent into Moscow, posing as man and wife. The plan, known only to the man, a seasoned killer, is to eliminate Stalin. The operation is run by an agent who is a longtime friend of the assassin. The operation depends on secrecy. But not everything goes as planned. In fact, almost nothing does.
The story had me at the edge of my seat again and again. Just when I thought it was safe, bam! Honestly, I don't look for books that do this to me, but this one, with compelling characters and believable scenes, kept me reading.
Eight years ago, Kathy Kelly lost her husband Jack and two children to a plane crash. Now the plane is found, but there are no other bodies apart from the pilot's bones. Did Jack and her children survive?
She has to go through hell again emotionally with all the secret services in the neck.
History jumps from today back to the past and back to today. It shows Kathy's family life, which has been shaped by the military since childhood. Not only was her father a senior military officer, so was her husband Jack and her brother. It tells about post-traumatic disorders about the returnees after an Iraq mission, but also about illegal machinations by the Gulf War veterans.
Will Kathy be able to hold her loved one in her arms again?
Despite it being a bit of a longer novel at 742 pages it certainly doesn't drag things out as some books do, everything felt like it had a purpose and the pace was well formed slowly building to the climax at the end of the book. There's a few sub plots that keep your interest as the main plot line builds and everything threads together nicely.
I enjoyed this much more than the other Glenn Meade book I previously read, Snow Wolf.
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HenriMoreaux | Mar 6, 2019 |
HenriMoreaux | Mar 6, 2019 | 
Ultimately the "explosive revelations" found in the Dead Sea Scrolls somewhat failed to impress me, so that the narrative seemed to lose momentum right at the moment it should have grabbed me by the throat. Nevertheless, a fun ride with some unexpected twists toward the end.
Rasputin was mentioned, and I paused, for a moment. I thought perhaps, for a second, things were going to be interesting. Unfortunately, this book appeals to a different audience. I imagine it to be the sort of book you find in airport bookshops. The thrills so feel shallow, just like all the characters. I’m sure someone else will be drawn into this book and wrapped up. Just not me.
Meade’s writing is at some moments beautiful, and in others rambling. Eventually the beautiful is squashed out by the rambling. He uses every possible detail in each sentence. Brand names, a minimum of two adjectives for every noun. This is a pet peeve, but there are a few different times when he uses multiple adverbs in the sentence. Every time we meet someone, we get to learn where they came from, and precisely what they are wearing. I know this style works for a lot of people. I know a lot of people LOVE this type of intricate detail. Frankly, I got bored.
I also have issues in thrillers where the author writes a smart, talented, sharp female character and instead of letting her stand on her own feet, she falls to bits. Instead of letting her be strong, she regresses and requires a man to explain things to her and give her advice. I am not impressed.
I have some criticisms of this narrator. While she does alright in dialogue, the protagonist’s voice frustrates me. As read by Kate Reading, every sentence ends in something between a question and a sigh. It makes it a bit dreary to listen for too long.
I found the plot to be interesting and compelling however I did find myself struggling to maintain focus around half way the story then picked up towards the last quarter and I found the ending to be quite well done.
For me, personally, I hated the style of the writing. It's short and choppy, with mostly stilted, often awkward dialogue with barely any description. It's as if it's written in the absolute barest minimal style, so, for me, it was hard to picture things. It was as if I was reading the bones of the story, without colour or flesh, nothing tangible to bring it to life and give it emotion.
I imagine that those who love the book are those affected or naturally touched by the genocide and other events of former Yugoslavia. People who relate to the issue and events of the backstory because they are from the area or culture? I'm sure it'll be a much more positive book for them.
For me, I think the issue was too forced. The message that the time and place were awful felt like it was being forced down your throat, repeatedly. It felt like the point of the story was just to tell readers how awful the time period was, and how awful people are, not to deliver a solid story. I don't want to read a newspaper article telling me that war sucks. I want a story. If you want to show how war sucks at the same time, fine.
In all honestly, after only 70 pages, the story had not gripped me, I hated the style, there was no intimacy with the characters, so I put it down. Not something I do easily or often.
A great novel that has everything a reader would love. The story is based on the Dead Sea scrolls, the cover-up at the Vatican combined with an Israel cover-up and an Islamic twist that takes the reader on quite a ride.
The book takes the readers into a dangerous journey through various countries in the Middle East searching for stolen scrolls that may change how the world views religion from every outlet around. Glenn Meade created a mastermind of adventure, crime, murder, mystery, and a lot more above and below ground level. The story is somewhat complex involving decades of religion, politics, mafia, the black market, crime but written in comprehendible context in an exciting way.
A great number of various characters created and developed to the readers liking. The characters keep you guessing who is honest vs. who is corrupt. Plus, you have the thrill of whodunit scenes followed by why!
I was really intrigued and fascinated by many well descriptive places, images, artifacts, relics, pottery, ancient statues, buildings and tunnels beneath the city. It makes me want to travel and see it all for myself. This novel has amazing depth with its secrets, archaeological data, Christian novelty, monasteries, churches, right down to following the Pope’s journey throughout the book. I highly recommend the book.
Author: Glenn Meade
Pages: 592
Year: 2016
Publisher: Howard
My rating is 3 stars.
Other novels by Glenn Meade that I have enjoyed were Brandenburg and The Romanov Conspiracy, so when I learned of The Cairo Code being released it piqued my interest. The author has a very gifted way of writing historical fiction with suspense, tension, mystery with multiple plots occurring simultaneously. While it might sound as if a reader might get lost in the maze of plots, the tale is crafted so well that the action moves at a brisk pace with returning frequently to other action so as to keep characters fresh in the reader’s mind.
The Cairo Code was originally published as The Sands of Sakkara published in 1999. Originally, having owned The Sands of Sakkara, I was hoping that the author not only wrote more action and suspense into the book, but also removed the foul language. In The Cairo Code, there are very few uses of foul language, and while there are no explicit sex scenes some descriptions of female northern body parts were mentioned. The descriptions distracted from the story being told and frankly were embarrassing to read each time they appeared in the book.
I really enjoy fiction when written with historical settings, time frames and people. I love suspense and the tension of all that occurs in catching spies, saving lives, action scenes and more. While set during President Roosevelt’s term in office, most of the scenes occur overseas due to a conference planned with Winston Churchill. Frankly, those two men would put any novel on my radar as with any historical novel. I just wish the author would not have made so many references to female bodies. It isn’t because I am unaware of what went on during war, but it did not need to be mentioned.
Personally, I am disappointed as I know the author is very talented and I would love nothing better than suggest you read the novel. However, it is sad to say that I cannot on this novel.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255. “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Read with immersion reading. 4 star Audible.
While the book seemed character-heavy in the beginning, it was necessary to introduce them in short order for the story to properly take off. Meade weaves the story in such a way that each character is separate and distinct and as the story propels, it is easy to keep track of them and their part in the story.
Interestingly, my book club read The Kitchen Boy by Robert D. Zimmerman several months ago, which was painstakingly researched by the author. Many of the people, events, and situations in that book were the same in this book. That period of history is intriguing, and I would highly recommend this book.
While traveling by air is a very common occurrence, and more people die in automobile accidents than in airplane crashes, SECONDS TO DISASTER catalogues the reasons that most airline crashes occur.
The usual reason given by the airlines is pilot error. That is true sometimes, but often the pilots are the scapegoats because the airline doesn’t want to admit any causes for which they may be held accountable. As airlines try to increase their incomes by lowering fares, squeezing in more passengers, paying lower salaries which translates into younger, less experienced captains, , and using less qualified contractors in Asia or South America to build and maintain their planes, the risks to passengers, crews, and people on the ground increase. Counterfeit parts have been found on a large percentage of airplanes, including Air Force One. Trying to keep on schedule to keep expenses lower sometimes involves taking a risk, such as flying in inclement weather or allowing the captain to divert to another airport. Airlines sometimes take risks by by not allowing the captain to make changes in the flight plan. Whistleblowers have been fired.
The book discusses these areas and provides tips on how to survive a plane crash. Some of the primary reasons for crashes are extending the hours that crew members must work, including travel time, the use of automatic and computer-driven operation without thoroughly instructing the crew what to do if the system doesn’t work, and improper maintenance. It focuses on several crashes and details what went wrong in each case.
SECONDS TO DISASTER points out that unless children are seated in approved car seats, like found in automobiles, they are more at risk than are adults. When the airline has the child ride in someone’s lap, that child serves as an airbag for the adult. Amazingly, some airlines will not permit passengers to bring on a safe car seat for the child’s use even though they are available.
The authors list several tips for consumers to watch for to help ensure safe flying. They include knowing which airlines to avoid, sitting within five rows of an exit, knowing how big the exit door is (the ones in the front and rear are larger and easier to exit), being prepared to quickly release the seat belt (pull, don’t push), and don’t try to take anything out with you such as packages in the overhead compartments. Unfortunately, the pilot’s mental state is not one of them and it’s nearly impossible to know if the pilot has mental issues which may lead to suicide by plane.
Chapter 1 was the worst chapter of the book It stated at least seven times that the plane was headed for disaster. The remainder of the book had a better presentation but people who are afraid of flying shouldn’t read it. For everyone else, it details the many pressures that airplane crews face which affect passengers in a somewhat simplified manner.
This book was a free Amazon download.
Echte psychologische diepgang moet je echter niet verwachten. Van de meeste personages zijn de politieke gedragingen vrij goed gemotiveerd, maar hun romantische demarches nogal voorspelbaar. Ook de link tussen heden en verleden vond ik minder geslaagd. Het ik-personage uit het heden kan niet op tegen de kleurrijke personages uit het verleden.
Slotsom: goeie lectuur voor wie houdt van een spannende roman in een historisch decor.
This is a book you’ll read and then put on your bookshelf a changed person. It is a book you will then pick up from time to time to again brood over your feelings about evil in the world. So powerful are the images that will dwell in your soul and so emotional the message, you will want to revisit The Last Witness in those moments when you begin to fear that the world has once again forgotten. And you’ll hear, deep in the recesses of your mind, the haunting refrain of “If you don’t stand up to evil, then evil will stand up to you” and wonder what you should do to stand up to evil.
Glenn Meade provides a frightening glimpse into what happened in Yugoslavia over twenty years ago. His story is based on true experiences. Meade’s part in this story began one morning in Dubrovnik when he sat on a cafe terrace. A young woman sat down nearby. Meade began to talk with her. Her harrowing tale was not one he expected to hear that beautiful morning. But it was one he had to tell.
The young woman became the model for Carla Lane, the novel’s last witness, whose disturbing dreams begin to foreshadow a fearsome journey into her unknown past. Carla knows that as a small child she was found by NATO Special Forces during the Bosnian war, walking one cold, snowy evening along a road clutching a book with no memory of who she was or what lay in her past.
She knows an American couple adopted her and that she was raised in America. What she doesn’t know is why she is now seeing alarming images in her dreams or why she is feeling premonitions of a tragedy about to happen.
Then, as she stands just fifty feet from her husband Jan, he is murdered by a car bomb placed by Serbian war criminals. As she lays on the parking garage floor, barely conscious, she sees the faces of “a small, emaciated boy staring up at her with huge sad eyes; a woman’s frail hand, outstretched toward her. A bright lightbulb swinging in a dark room. A fluttering of snowflakes falling on woods on a cold winter’s night.”
Jan’s brother tells her that her husband was asking questions about Bosnian war criminals. He warns her off, telling her that she should risk not her life – or the life of her unborn child – to pursue Jan’s killers. “You mean to say someone just decided to kill Jan because he was investigating them”? “They’re dangerous people, Carla. With horrific crimes in their past.” “Why did he do it? Why risk his life?” “Because he wanted to speak for the dead. Because he wanted to see these killers and torturers face the courts. He was obsessed with finding the guilty.”
She meets with a therapist, a man who treated her as a child. He begins to reveal pieces of her past, including the book she was carrying those many years ago – her mother’s diary recording some of the horrors that she, her parents and her younger brother endured in the camp called the Devil’s Hill.
Her mother wrote of “the query made about man’s inhumanity to man in the [Nazi] concentration camps. The question was asked: ‘At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?’ And the answer came: ‘Where was man?’” She continues, “The world must know. Not only what has happened, but to take hope, that the human spirit has a power that endures. I know this to be so, despite all our tragedies. Evil can never destroy the light of goodness that shines within us. How can it ever be? When there is not enough darkness in the world to quench the light of one small candle…”
Carla decides she must find out what happened to her family. Then she is going to track down Mila Shavik – the monster she believes killed them all.
She discovers that the monster is living in America – running an organized crime operation. A UN team of forensic pathologists finds her mother’s body but not that of her brother – leading Carla to believe that just possibly he is still alive.
The deeper she gets into her search, the more distressed she becomes trying to understand why so many died. Sean Kelly, one of the forensic pathologists, explains to her, “hatred and intolerance are certainly part of it. And sheer cruelty. But like the Nazis or the Japanese military class during World War Two, it’s mostly about arrogance – maybe the worse sin of all, because it makes some people see others as less than human, as inferior enemies deserving of torture and death. … That’s what it’s all about. And because they can get away with it, because the rule of law has broken down.”
Kelly reminds Carla that she is the last witness of the brutality at the camp. She must provide testimony of what she and her family experienced. Her memories must be recorded so they will not be lost – not just to eventually prosecute those responsible but to remind us all.
Meade’s telling of Carla’s search for her family and their killers is riveting. It is the tale not only of the redemption of her soul, but the redemption of a whole generation of victims. In her journey, Carla endangers others who have sought to help her. She almost loses her own life. Meade’s conclusion to the story is satisfying – though very unexpected.
“Good and evil, like love and hate, are so close that they’re chained together in the soul. … [W]e can unleash whichever one we choose …. Hate perishes the moment you stop feeding it; but good lives on long after it dies … life is greater and stronger than all the shadows. [N]othing loved is ever truly lost. And whatever evil wraps its arms around is, its embrace is only momentary, a fleeting thing.”
Read it. Weep for the dead. Promise yourself that you will not stand idly by when it happens again.
This review is based on a copy of the novel provided by the publisher through NetGalley.com.
Reviewed at http://www.walterbristow.com/2014/08/29/the-last-witness-by-glenn-meade/
This story concerns the Dea Sea scrolls, plain and simple. Add in some speculation that the Vatican is actually covering up some scrolls that may cast doubt on the church, and we have the birth of a second messiah, albeit a false one. The players involved are vast and i am not sure what everyone's motive is. We have the church, obviously trying to cover stuff up, but there is also a newly elected pope that both was part of the intial coverup and also now wants to open the archives to the public; Mossad because Israel wants to preserve the Jewish faith; a black market dealer named Pasha, who i dont really know why is wrapped in all this; Malik who is connected from day one, yet his ultimate motives seem a bit harsh given the circumstance. There is also the cast of characters around Jack Cane that offer some weirdness to it all, Lela Raul (his once friend now estranged for 20 yrs), Yasmin Green with her own story that at first i thought given certain events was one way but then upon a revelation further in the book, makes sort of sense...to the reader, but the other characters should have been more skeptical, and Buddy Savage who seems to be a bit of an odd duck, storywise as well, that ultimately closes a loop.
So what we have is another religious fiction story where a small piece of history is contorted into a conspiracy thriller. That is fine and for the most part i was happy to come along the ride. It doesnt have the same research as a Dan Brown novel...as in the story plays off a very high level suspicion, but what the hell it is what it is. Taking place within the Judean desert mostly...near Qumran, Israel, Jordan etc and also Rome...naturally.
The story was wrapped up mostly well but there were some plot points i felt left hanging, death was treated nonchalantly except for reall Jack's parents and one other that got an elaborate burial. There is also the issue of a main character, Male scholar, dragging along a female cop, who knows not too much about the events, to his friend's house, an older gentleman in a wheelchair(due to back issues, but still "crippled"), where great revelation is taught to the other characters....only sounds a "little" like Prof Langdon, Sophie, and Teabing from DaVinci Code to me...
But all in all, it was a good quick book that passes the time well, and i would definitely read furhter into Glenn Meade's list of previously published and future publications. And who knows perhaps his other books not concerning religious mystery will follow a better pattern and not seem so Brown-esque...
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