This was my first exposure to Stuart Woods's oeuvre, and I enjoyed the book. It's tricky to make a sociopath like this protagonist a sympathetic character, and while I didn't actually care about Michael Vincent, wasn't rooting for him, didn't hope he'd triumph in the end, I did feel the escalating tension as Michael lied, cheated, screwed, and killed his way from a stint as a small-time Mob enforcer in New York to his dream job as a movie producer in and among the bright lights of L.A. There was never any doubt in my mind that Michael would get his, in the end, but I was interested to see how much damage he would inflict to build his fantasy empire, and in what fashion it would come crashing down upon him.

It's a roaring fast read, too. If I hadn't had to work, I could have swallowed this thing in an afternoon.