Without Honor (Kirk McGarvey, 1)

Rating:
Summary: BORING!
Review: I am a huge fan of David Hagberg. I have read all of his books and thought they were all great. This one was the exception, it was slow paced with little if any action. I know this was an early work. I had read the others before getting back to this one, so I was used to the fast pace action packed novels. Outside of Kirk the characters were bland. I guess i expected a bit more from Baronov and company. I'm just going to forget about this one. I don't think one rotten apple will spoil the bunch.

Rating:
Summary: BORING!
Review: I am a huge fan of David Hagberg. I have read all of his books and thought they were all great. This one was the exception, it was slow paced with little if any action. I know this was an early work. I had read the others before getting back to this one, so I was used to the fast pace action packed novels. Outside of Kirk the characters were bland. I guess i expected a bit more from Baronov and company. I'm just going to forget about this one. I don't think one rotten apple will spoil the bunch.

Rating:
Summary: Not Typical Hagberg!
Review: This book was certainly a letdown from other Hagberg books that I have read in the past.Not even aaltime McGarvey villain Baranov could save this book. There was little or no action in this book. This book consisted of a great deal of dialogue between McGarvey and the other characters. There are little or no action sequences that have been a trademark in other Hagberg books. This definitely must have been one of his first books.He got much better in his later writings. I know why this book is unavaliable for purchaese. It is to boring to read. Buy his other books. You will like them much better.

Rating:
Summary: Hagberg's BEST - and sue me if you think different
Review: This book, in my opinion, is the best Hagberg EVER wrote. I've read a few of the later Kirk McGarvey volumes, and they seem almost like an exercise in "writing by numbers", when compared to this one. Examples? You need examples? Introducing "significant others" so that they would be blown up or away in the next volume of the saga might be a nice one. I know, the plot has to get moving somehow, but we've all seen that in Bond movies. Then, of course, McGarvey turns into an aging killing machine, dispatching the enemies like pop-up targets (they don't have much more depth, anyway). Boring and predictable. I'd rather have unpretentious fun with Remo Williams!
In "Without Honor", on the other hand, the tone is sombre, almost like an AmE adaptation of a James Le Carre novel, with a high level of complexity and betrayals galore (instead of the token moronic and still scheming DDO of the CIA in the later volumes - did I use the word "boring" already?). Almost no gun-totin' action to speak of, as McGarvey is carried away by events beyond his ken and control, and ever more confused with every new betrayal and switch in apparent loyalties.
Really, a good one. As opposed to the mediocre showing in later instalments.