This book has been sitting on my shelf way too long.
And now I started it, I can't get into it.
Started, put it away, started again, same result. I'm giving up, although the teaser " Grisham meets Ludlum" really should mean this is a book I would probably like.

Sorry! I'll send it out on a new journey soon!

I liked everything except this girl Jesse,who gets really mixed up much too easily. Otherwise, this was a really good read! ( )

Back when this novel first came out I think I probably liked it well enough, but now 14 years later I can’t stomach it. First of all it’s very stagey. Near the beginning for example, Jesse has intense conversations with people that go into tons of detail about current and past events. No one talks like that and putting an info dump into a conversation is still an info dump. Oh and if you’re trying to impress us with your wine knowledge, but don’t actually have any, ask someone for heaven’s sake. Opus One. Jeez, is that the only thing you could come up with? Poseur. Secondly, I hated the voice and speech characterizations peppered throughout, like “he said in his deep voice” and “he analyzed”; very amateurish. Just indicate who spoke and elucidate separately. Third are the clichés both in character and action; of course Jesse falls down when Ross is chasing her, haven’t you seen any B movies? And that predator/prey thing was so heavy handed I just rolled my eyes the whole time. David is a nice looking, malleable fuck-up and will undoubtedly stumble and stutter his way into a heroic ending, but I don’t want to see it. Ditto for Jesse who is just a bit smarter, but equally uninteresting and bland. All the evil manipulators are just so evil that they’re like cartoons. And the rape scene? Did we need that? Please, talk about gratuitous. I’m done. ( )