Having recently borrowed and read the previous instalments of this trilogy, I was hoping for something that would add something to the story.This however, is one of the weakest books I have read. Had it not been the final instalment of the trilogy, I would not have bothered to read more than 50 pages.
Because the first two were good fun, I did spend some time thinking about why this one was so bad. The principal problem is that the reader (this one anyway) actually disliked the main character, which would probably have been fine had that been the intention - which it probably wasn't...
Add to that, an entirely uninteresting storyline - many, many pages devoted to the appearance of leaves on trees, and this in a book far shorter than its predecessor...
Add to that, some of the most unsubtle political commenting I have ever seen in a novel - Bill Clinton is mentioned several times as the only man that can save the health of America...
Add to that, some truly awful dialogue - maybe the author's lack of ability to write dialogue mattered less when the scene was set in the past, but it grates on the nerves terribly when set in the (nearly) current.
In short, if you can bring yourself to pretend that there wasn't a third book, then the "whole is more than a sum of its parts" only if you don't bother with this part.
