Ooof. Wasn’t awful but was certainly stilted/poorly written in spots. Not nearly as interesting or in my wheelhouse as the Lincoln Child books I’ve been reading. (Ironically, I’ve been catching up with all these old Preston and Child books while I wait for the first Preston & Child book Relic to be available on Libby.)
I think the voices/accents the reader uses in the audiobook likely made it even worse, but even for a book from 20 years ago this was pretty culturally incompetent. And it saved some of the worst racism for a totally unnecessary final coda that doubled down on bigotry and some of the worst language yet.
I read Preston’s Tyrannosaur Canyon on vacation ages ago and liked it, so despite struggling with this one I’m still eager to reread that and check out the rest of the Wyman Ford books. Hopefully they’re a little more fun and a lot less dated in their perspective.
Rating: 2.5 stars
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