Year of the Golden Ape

Rating:
Summary: Golden Ape - Someone is definitely running low on gas & oil!
Review: I usually pick up a book for three reasons: 1) to read becasue it's a good one and I can't put it down 2) because I need to learn something or study something and 3) because I have a habit of reading a book while I have a snack. This latest one by Colin Forbes definitely falls into the third catergory. Why? Well, you can eliminate the 2nd catergory for sure. Let me explain. For years I have picked up books by Colin Forbes - our library has a huge collection of his books. After reading this one I think he'd better definitely stick to the Tweed & Paula Gray series. Golden Ape disappointed me - Arabs again! The rest of the family agreed with me on this point - there are definitely too many novels and stories with Arabs being the bad guys because of oil prices and deals made through OPEC etc. Enough is enough! Why add another? They tend to bore. Golden Ape was no exception. I expected something else after the hijack of the oil tanker - but nothing! I was left very disappointed. The supposed climax of the story - well, it wasn't much of a climax. But I do admire Forbes for how much depth he created in his characters - I find that that seems to come easy to him and in this case - Winter was a great success on his own but as part of the book - well, there was a big difference in the characters. A lot like a bar graph: when it came to the characters, the bar would shoot up, when it came to the plot and story line it would hover below zero. Minus points for originality, plus points for character. It sounds like someone definitely ran out of oil or gas or petrol on this one and it wasn't the US or UK.