Can a story be exciting while the book in which it's contained is boring? Actually, Yes. That was my experience with Steve Martini's Critical Mass.

The Story

The story was one of the more exciting ones I've enjoyed in a long time. You've got terrorists who want to devastate a US city using nuclear devices smuggled out of Russia. You have the weak, indecisive President of the US, with his own secret agenda, one that he wants to keep private, no matter the cost. You've got the innocent by-stander lawyer who gets dragged up to her neck in this mess because her mysterious new client is definitely not who he claims to be. And, for extra fun, you've got an extremely cunning US citizen who's very angry at the US government for reasons of his own. If that's not enough, you've got planes being blown to smithereens, a jail-break, several fishermen dying of a mysterious disease, and a unique plot device having to do with a port-a-potty.

Like I said, the story was amazingly exciting. Much is not what it appears to be. Twists and turns occur throughout. The story, itself, was truly thrilling, right up until the very last page.

Oddly, though, I didn't love reading the book!

Why not?

I found the writing to be a bit dry. There were many long passages of narrative describing absolutely nothing important. Despite wanting to hear how the story turns out, I found myself reading a mere chapter or two, then putting the book down for the day. When I picked it up again, I could never remember the last thing I'd read, always having to go back a bit. This happens when the writing is so dull, it's simply unmemorable.

Further complicating the reading of this book is the sheer number of characters, and their similar-sounding names. When a book has a ridiculous number of characters, and doesn't spend time developing them particularly well, it's very hard to keep track of them. Furthermore, when the characters are named "Chenko", "Chaney" and "Charness", I had to keep going back to figure out who was who!

Are the characters likable?

The ones we get to know are.

Very few of the characters are actually well-developed. However, those that are given backstories are quite likeable. There's Joss, the lawyer who has no idea what she's getting into when she takes the retainer of new mysterious client. There's Gideon, the nuclear fission expert who first notices a discrepancy on a Russian inventory listing. Naturally, there develops a very sweet relationship between Joss and Gideon. Of the bad guys, most have absolutely no backstory at all, so you have no idea how they got where they are, and what their true motivations are. Only Taggert is the exception. He's the US citizen with a very understandable gripe against the government. Not to condone his criminal actions, but at least we can understand where he's coming from.

Overall

I'll recommend this book based purely on the extremely exciting story. In fact, it would make an awesome movie. However, the writing is a bit dull, and the characters a bit hard to grab onto. Still, the good outweighs the bad. By a very small margin.





Also by Steve Martini:
Compelling Evidence
The Attorney
The Jury


Recommended: Yes