Before the Beginning

I started reading a book by a new-to-me author. It began with a prologue, headed “3 Years Ago.” Not an immediate turnoff—3 years seems long enough before “Chapter 1” to consider it a prologue.

However, in this book, it took almost 10 pages of back story and info dumping before we get to the action—the protagonist discovering his wife lying on the floor bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head. Does the reader need to know everything the hero was thinking from the moment he woke up, trying to...