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review SPOILER ALERT! 2020-04-19 06:13
Review: Three Hours in Paris by Cara Black
Three Hours in Paris - Cara Black

The premise of this story was good, and I tend to like historical fiction, but this book just didn’t grab me. Full disclosure, I stopped reading about halfway through. It wasn’t interesting enough to make me keep reading.

 

SPOILER ALERT: Though this review will be brief, the reasons I stopped reading do contain spoilers.

 

Kate wasn’t a very interesting character. All I knew about her in the first half of the book was that she lost her husband and daughter and could shoot really well. Apart from that she displayed no other personality at all. The German detective who is hunting her down after her failed mission was the same. I have no idea who he is and he showed not a single glimmer of a personality.

 

The story also told me all the good parts by about page 70, when we have a chapter between Kate’s handler and some of the other spies when he basically just says that they expected her to fail and it was her mission to fail. The Fuhrer will be too busy trying to catch her after the botched assassination attempt to not see the real assassination attempt happening. Yawn. So I am supposed to sit though 230 more pages of Kate trying not to get caught when the only reason she was sent there is to get caught? Wait, I think I know how this ends…she uncovers the nefarious plot to throw her under the Gestapo bus and miraculously escapes.

 

Speaking of getting caught, in the portion that I read, Kate should have gotten caught at least three times. She gets stopped by German soldiers on three separate occasions (when they know they are looking for someone in the vicinity who shot at their leader) but no one searches her bag? They search her. They look under the bag. One of them even remarks on the heaviness of the bag….which contains the rifle she used to attempt the assassination. But no one actually looks IN THE BAG. No wonder the Third Reich was defeated, they had a bunch of morons working for them.

 

Also, why does Kate keep the rifle? Her handler was specific that she needed to keep it (you know, to properly frame her). But she realizes that it’s incredibly stupid to not ditch it. And yet, she still doesn’t ditch it. Why? Is she as stupid as the soldiers who should have searched her? She even says that she might have been abandoned by her handlers and still doesn’t ditch it.

 

I just couldn’t get into the story. It annoyed me more than it interested me. I had no desire to keep reading and so, I didn’t.

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text 2020-04-15 23:54
LIVING A LIFETIME IN 3 HOURS
Three Hours in Paris - Cara Black
As someone with a special fondness for Second World War adventure stories, I came to "THREE HOURS IN PARIS" with a lot of high expectations. Indeed, it was about 2 years ago, when I went to see Cara Black speak at a local bookstore about one of her Aimée Leduc novels, she had mentioned to the audience that she was at work on a novel that would be taking place in Paris during the Second World War. That was enough to pique my interest.

So, I began reading "THREE HOURS IN PARIS" eagerly anticipating reading a novel that would enthrall me from start to finish. Well, it wasn't quite like that. I was 35 pages into the novel feeling underwhelmed by what I had read. In fact, what I was reading struck me as shoddy and amateurish, something a reader would expect to find from a first-time novelist, not a practiced and celebrated writer. There is a scene in which one of the main characters in the novel, Kate Rees, is working near a military installation at Hoy in the Orkney Islands (near Scotland) when the installation comes under attack by the German Luftwaffe (air force). Two sentences that helped to describe the ensuing action immediately stood out before my eyes as someone who is a longtime aviation enthusiast. The first sentence is "A propeller plane droned out of the clouds, followed by a second, then a third one." What is THAT supposed to mean? I didn't find that to be a particularly descriptive sentence that would have made the action more compelling and real to me. What kind of aircraft is a propeller plane?! Frankly, that was an awkward sentence and should have been re-worked.

And as for the second sentence, that rankled me because it makes absolutely no sense at all! Well, as a way of proving my point, I'll also include the preceding sentence: "The Luftwaffe were taking another pass now that the clouds had cleared. Only two this time, their swastikas glinting on the fuselage." SWASTIKAS GLINTING ON THE FUSELAGE?! As someone who has read about and studied Second World War aviation since I was a preteen, I know for a fact that Luftwaffe planes bore the swastika on the tail unit, NOT THE FUSELAGE. (The fuselage is the main body of an airplane, distinct from the wings and the tail unit.)   Clearly, the author failed to take account of that fact.

Kate, feeling bereaved and bereft after losing her husband and baby daughter during the first year of the war, accepts the offer made by a mysterious and officious gentleman --- who had been made aware of her prowess as a sharpshooter --- to come to London and join the ranks of Section D in British intelligence (i.e., the Secret Intelligence Service or SIS = MI-6).

The time is mid-June 1940. Paris has been declared an 'open city' and the Germans have marched in and occupied it. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF), along with a few scattered French army units, has managed to escape to Britain from the French port of Dunkirk. France is on the brink of total defeat. Kate is hastily trained to undertake a special mission to Paris, where her skills as a sharpshooter would prove to be valuable. She is parachuted into France on the night of June 22, 1940 (which is also the day that France has signed an armistice with Nazi Germany), landing in a non-descript area a short distance from Paris.

From the point Kate arrives in Paris, the pace in the novel quickens. The drama becomes compelling and that is what saved the novel for me. Yet, "THREE HOURS IN PARIS" is not in the class of a Frederick Forsyth, Alan Furst or a John le Carré espionage/action thriller. If Cara Black decides to write another Second World War novel set in France, I hope she will craft a tighter story and show greater care in conveying some historical details.
 
 

 

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review 2016-04-09 00:00
26 Hours in Paris
26 Hours in Paris - Demi Alex I received an eARC, from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.
'26 Hours in Paris' by Demi Alex is about Kathryn Taylor and Marko Renard and how they are meeting again after a few years of being apart.

Kathryn is a Magazine writer who is asked to do a story about falling in love and along with her friend who is also her coworker, is asked to do the same thing. Kathryn and her friend/coworker agreed not to let the story hurt their friendship and both will do the best story they can.
Kathryn heads to Paris for 24/26 hours to work on her story. Kathryn is looking for places that would have or lead you to falling in love. While landing in Paris at the airport she is contacted by Marko, who used to be a great friend and love. But when something happened to Kathryn father she up and left to deal with things going on with the family. So she has not seen Marko in a few years.

Marko knows that this is his chance to mover forward with Kathryn and plans to do what he can to get her to be with him. Marko will not let he get away a second time!

Now she is there with Marko...will she brave enough to stay and move forward?

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http://sissymaereads.blogspot.com/
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