Donald Strachey Challenge #14: Why Stop At Vengeance

[Jordan]

Here is the discussion topic for the 14th book in the Strachey series.

[Jordan]

I just started this one last night. Right away, there's an author's note that explains this book is "ripped from the headlines". Of course, you get that just by reading the description too.

So far, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Don's newest client is not my favorite person, though I do understand his motives.

[Jordan]

This is entertaining, and yet, I'm having a problem with Don's attitude toward Timmy a little bit. Nothing much, yet. Maybe I've just been reading too many romance novels and am expecting him to act differently in a tough situation? *shrugs* Anyway, I'm past the halfway point as of this morning.

[Jordan]

Finished! Can't wait to see what others think of this one. I'm firmly in the camp where the first eight books were the best of the bunch.

[Varecia]

Jordan wrote: "Finished! Can't wait to see what others think of this one. I'm firmly in the camp where the first eight books were the best of the bunch."

Congrats on finishing the challenge, Jordan!! I will start this one after finishing the book I read now, it's so good that I don't want to read anything on the side. But said even before starting it would surprise me if I would end in another camp than you!

[Jordan]

Varecia wrote: "Jordan wrote: "Finished! Can't wait to see what others think of this one. I'm firmly in the camp where the first eight books were the best of the bunch."

Congrats on finishing the challenge, Jorda..."

:-) Glad you're enjoying something you can't put down!

I'm specifically leaving out other comments I had about this book so I don't give spoilers. Can't wait to chat about it!

[Varecia]

Ugs, I already read this one and finished the challenge, but forget to comment on it. Which is funny, because I liked it - my “critical“ books were # 11 and 12. If I hadn't bought the rest already I would have stopped it there and then, because they were so over the top. # 13 and 14 felt calmer to me, that made them more palatable. And although the background for the plot of the last one is taken directly out of RL, the more restrained writing gives it a kind of timeless quality - other than some of the earlier installments, which will maybe hard to decipher in a few years (they were definitely not easy understandable to this poor European now).

But I'm definitely with Jordan in thinking that the first eight books are “better“ - or at least they feel more connected and the MCs more alive and real to me.

[Jordan]

The plots were original in the first eight.

[Jordan]

The last one was ok, but it just felt too ... I dunno... Unrealistic for the setting? I mean, he's just a PI, and he manages to change major things in another country. This kind of thing only really works once in a series like this, I think.

[Antonella]

I managed to finish the book in the last possible day!
Here my review:

3.5
I'm all against bigotry, and it is important to denounce the role evangelical US churches have in exporting or reinforcing homophobia. Still, I don't like stereotypes, and the villains in this case are quite stereotyped. Also now and then the tone is too preachy. The Russian connection is somehow strange, and in general Don doesn't behave professionally (going to visit the Pastor with his real car, trusting Dupree when he didn't want that his client trusts him?).

If someone is not into politics is it difficult to know what from real life and what not. Museveni is the president of Uganda and the country did want to introduce death sentence for gay people in 2009. The ''softer'' version of the law, Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, was then approved by the Parliament end of 2013, but was annulled 2014 by Uganda's Constitutional Court. Sketchy US psychologists and preachers were really involved in the debate about homosexuality in Uganda. And many gay and lesbians were murdered.

Although James Watt, US Interior Secretary 1981-1983, appointed by Ronald Reagan, was blatantly anti-environmental, he did not say that we do no need to protect the environment because Jesus will return to attend to all that ;-).

[Calathea]

I deleted the Strachey Challenge from the group homepage to make space for the upcoming Peter Grant Challenge. You can find a screenshot of the end results of the challenge in our groups photo section.

[Jordan]

Thanks, Calathea!