Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter (or possibly multiple chapters for this one) of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
In our last two chapter review our heroes caught their train while Russian Op-Center may lose the commie nickname I’ve been given it. We’ll have to see what happens there because there’s only one chapter this week and it’s back with the train.
As I noted last week, things are finally getting interesting, but that was also the problem with the last book. With all the unnecessary trivia and backstory the novel’s been padded out so much with unless stuff that it’s taken way to long for the story to get good. I’m not against flavor text (to use a card game term), backstory, or any history that benefits the story. Even the occasional trivia bit fleshes out the world. The problem with this franchise two novels in is that there’s too much of it, taking time away from telling the story, making it feel like a slog to finally get to the action.
Now that we are in the action part of the novel, with fourteen chapters left and a few of them short chapters, let’s see what’s happening back with the great train heist…which apparently includes the whole train.
Chapter 64: Tuesday, 11:10 PM, Khabarovsk
Hey, I spelled it right this time. Even typing out of the book, I had spellcheck for that location name telling me I spelled that location wrong.
We got some serious action this chapter. Nikita manages to get on the train and take out the driver, Private Newmeyer…not dead, but chasing him out of the engine car…or rather onto the engine car as he comes back in the other window and gets the drop on Nikita. That would have been cool to see visually instead of just mentally. The end result is Nikita wounded and captured thanks to Squires arriving, having found the boxes of cash for the coup. Remember, Nikita hasn’t learned about the coup yet, and apparently nobody on the Striker strike team speaks Russian to translate. What Squires and the team doesn’t know is that Nikita’s ring has a small cutting blade. This fight might not be over yet.
I can’t blame Nikita. Unaware of the coup, all he knows is the people he was asked to work with (which Striker didn’t know about) attacked the train and stole money for the military. He’s being a good soldier because he doesn’t know the other side of the story. I do wonder what will happen when and if he finally does know. I am glad nobody died in this fight, but this needs to get sorted out fast before someone does.
So not a lot to summarize but a good action piece. I wish we had more of these sprinkled through the story, as it would make the necessary discussion parts more interesting. At least the first book had the bombing investigation to at least attempt to move things along. Two-thirds of this book feel like set-up for this last third, and with a book this long that’s kind of boring.
The next installment also seems to be a decent length chapter, so another one chapter review unless I feel like it’s weak enough for the two pages back here. Either way it’s going to lead into a series of very short chapters, so how many I’ll group at once will probably depend on how much time I have to go over them. We’ll find out together in the coming reviews.
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