lonemagpie

THE HIDDEN OASIS by Paul Sussman. A real mixed bag. After intriguing first half dozen pages, absolutely fuck all happens for the next 170 (to the point that I almost gave up on it and did start just skimming). Then the chase-thriller plot that was advertised actually starts, and it's... OK. Nothing special. Better than Matthew Reilly, not as good as Cussler or Andy McDermott in the action fun stakes. For most of it, this is a racing smugglers to some stolen uranium kind of gig. Then in the last 120 pages or so, it jumps the shark into full-on random supernatural impossibility, which seems to have wandered in from a completely different book altogether and doesn't fit with what's gone on so far in this one. Throw in uninteresting characters and dialogue, and into the charity shop bag it goes.