Isaac Bell is actually one of my favorite Clive Cussler characters. I think that is why I am so disappointed in this latest installment.

Storyline: 5 stars. This was an interesting read with lots of historical insight into early movie making.

Characters: 3 stars Bell felt like the same old Bell, and I'd really like for him to at least pretend to mature through all of his experiences. I loved the ancillary character Pauline, but she's left to wither in the background.

Editing: 1 star. This book was written (in part) by a best selling author and published by a big-name firm. Why, then, does it feel like entire paragraphs of needed dialogue were cut while completely unrelated gibberish was left in? This isn't an idie author trying to do everything solo and/or on a shoe-string budget. Mr. Cussler deserves a refund for whatever portion of his royalties go toward editors.

Kindle formatting: Simply atrocious, and, again, there's no excuse for this. The chapter hyperlinks do not function correctly, there are weird spacing errors throughout the book, and bizarre text effects that distract from the story. So many Kindle readers are shying away from 99cent books because of poor writing, editing and formatting. I'm shying away from $14.00 e-books from big name publishing houses that cannot be bothered to spend a day properly formatting an html file!

So, with underdeveloped characters, absentee editing, and atrocious formatting, I'm giving this book 3 stars and that's being generous.