{"id":690,"date":"2013-07-04T14:36:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T22:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=690"},"modified":"2013-07-04T14:36:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T22:36:40","slug":"review-the-deceived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/04\/review-the-deceived\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Deceived"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>
\n The Deceived<\/a> by Brett Battles<\/a>
\n My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m on vacation in Kauai, rented cottage, one of those cute little places complete with a fat stack of hard-back mysteries. The usual suspects: Block, LeCarre, Grisham, Cruz Smith. I choose The Deceived<\/i> because I like the title. A beer, a comfortable chair on the front porch, and I\u2019m ready.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m only half a page in when it starts feeling familiar. I\u2019ve never been to Kauai, and when I was in Honolulu the only other time I\u2019ve been to Hawaii, I read sci-fi in an air-conditioned Hyatt. So why am I getting deja-vu?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s beautiful here, by the way, in case you were wondering. Peaceful. Just like people say, but then you can\u2019 always trust people, can you? I guess you can\u2019t even trust me. But I\u2019m getting off the subject.<\/p>\n

I push the feeling away and keep reading. Nothing new in this one. Bad-guy anti-hero type chasing down leads and committing thrilling acts of daring-do. A mystery and spy novel in one. Great vacation reading.<\/p>\n

About halfway through I figure it out– not the plot, but my feeling of deja-vu. I\u2019ve read Brett Battles before, and this character. There\u2019s a prequel to The Deceived, called The Cleaner. A few years ago I had the sample on my e-reader, and although it was interesting, it wasn\u2019t as compelling as at least one of the other half-dozen samples I was evaluating, so I never got back to it.<\/p>\n

But now I will. And that\u2019s my review. The Deceived<\/i> is a sequel, and good enough to stand on it\u2019s own– there are a few references to the first book, and I know how it will end now, more or less. But Battle\u2019s pacing, and his character Quinn, are interesting enough that I want to read more.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s seems like praise, to me. And I\u2019ve got four days of vacation left- more than enough time.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Deceived by Brett Battles My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’m on vacation in Kauai, rented cottage, one of those cute little places complete with a fat stack of hard-back mysteries. The usual suspects: Block, LeCarre, Grisham, Cruz Smith. I choose The Deceived because I like the title. A beer, a comfortable chair on … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: The Deceived”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-b8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}