I started this book years ago but was not feeling it. I put it down and forgot about it. Yet, every once in a while when I got to pick up a book from my TBR pile; this book kind of haunts me. I finally decided to give this book a second chance.

When I first started reading this book, it was like a different experience. I was into the story. The characters not right away but I was starting to warm up to them. Emma seemed interesting. However, my excitement faded fast again after about a third of the way in. There was a point where it was just a lot of talking and not much else. Maybe if I had read Running from the Devil I might have stuck with this book longer but than again maybe not. The second time around was not better and it seems that I might never finish this book. ( )

Where I got the book: freebie at a networking event, author present but for some reason it never occurs to me to get Jamie to sign her books.

I feel like I should be nicer, really; I like Jamie Freveletti. But I'm just the wrong reader for these books; the point of the thriller genre escapes me. I mean, you read a book because it gives you something; in my case, I like historicals because I like to think about the past, and mysteries because I love trying to figure things out ahead of the sleuth. Presumably people who love thrillers crave breathless excitement, but all this running about and trying to avoid getting killed just seems exhausting to me.

Plot: Emma Caldridge is injected with a mystery drug just after a bomb interrupts a race. Her attempts to figure out what happened lead her to Somalia and thence out into the ocean, where associate Sumner is helping a disabled cruise liner fend off some pretty determined pirates. The liner's cargo hold may contain the clue to the puzzle...

I do find it interesting how Freveletti comes up with all this stuff about drugs and drug-running and dangerous people in general. She either does her research very well or has a pretty vivid imagination (I have NO clue what's real and what's imagined). Maybe both. I did enjoy learning about the back blast from an RPG; that'll come in handy come the revolution (hint: don't stand behind one).

I'm reading the series backwards, but noting pretty much the same issues I had with The Ninth Day. Especially Emma's speshulness. This time she leaps from a moving boat onto a ladder hanging off a gigantic cruise liner, plots strategy to defeat the bad guys and handles weapons after about two minutes' training. She is a terrorist-fighting MACHINE! And every guy she meets fancies her, even though she hardly ever gets a chance to wash and barely eats. I think we're supposed to think she's looking foxy after a week or two on the road, but I'm thinking more along the lines of roadkill on a bad hair day.

So the question is, does the Shelf of Shame hold the first novel somewhere down there in Layer 1? Should I read it and unleash more reader-confusion into the reviewsphere? Read some other thrillers (believe me, people keep giving them to me) in an attempt to sync with the genre and achieve enlightenment? Or give up and reach for a book I understand? You may have to wait for the next installment of...

READING DARK™ - Reviews from the Edge. ( )

Running dark is when a cruise ship moves in the open ocean with no lights and off the radar. The german cruise ship is doing just that as Somali pirates attempt to board and take not only the ship and it's guests captive, but also the hidden shipment of drugs on board it. Darkview Security has one operative onboard, another on her way as well as problems on the homefront with politicians attacking their past activities with the goal of ultimately destroying Darkview. Fast moving action with insights into Somalia and it's issues with pirates. Emma Caldridge is back and in the thick of it! ( )

First, THANK YOU to William Morrow (Publisher) for sending me this book for free! I read and reviewed the first in the series when I recieved a free copy from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Second in her Emma Caldridge series and a wonderful read. Non-stop action, many players involved. Still don't know who the 'Vulture' is, so I hope that leaves things open enough for another in the series! ( )

Not a terrible book, but not one that I enjoyed reading. I received it as an advanced reviewer for Library Thing, and finished it only because I felt bound to giving it its full due.

Much of the driving force of this second novel happened in the first book, and when I realized that I tried to get the first one from my library, to no avail. So I didn't know that the heroine was a chemist right away. And I didn't really understand why "Darkview", a private defense contractor, would arrange for a civilian to get to a cruise ship that was being attacked by pirates instead of one of their own operatives.

The whole premise simply got more and more ludicrous. The characters never grew, the relationships never deepened. Everything just stayed on the surface. We were told something was so, and that was that.

Not a mystery, no thrills. I've read worse, but I won't be reading more of her books. To be honest, I'm surprised at all the high ratings. No amount of research can make up for a poorly-constructed plot, etc. ( )