Potential here for a series maybe ( )

Potential here for a series maybe ( )

Warning: This book features torture, rape and murder and is fairly graphic. It's also fairly lazily racist and while it's written from a female character point of view it's a lazy male depection of the character.

Reading it was a bit of a train wreck, while I was a bit put off by some of the descriptions and how people were treated I was pulled through. I can't say that Terry Goodkind doesn't write in a compelling way but I also felt that the politics almost drowned out the story.

Angela Constantine is the daughter of a meth addict, working two jobs. One in a bar and another working as a courier. She suffered an abusive childhood. Her mother didn't care for her and some of her male friends used Angela and it took her grandparents a long time to step in and step up (and seriously, where was child services? Ah yes, Goodkind is a Randian.) The teachers in the school back up a bully, the police and the legal system are all inept, corrupt or almost pure evil. Angela has no support beyond her grandparents who are killed, leaving her relying solely on herself. She's often described as thinking of herself as sexy (see: Lazy sexism).

She has a special ability to see killers, she just has to look into their eyes, and she can tell what they have done, she uses this ability to hunt serial killers, and takes some pleasure in meting out punishment (in a torture porn way, lovingly described).

When some Hispanic seeming people are in the bar she works in she realises that there's something wrong and when her latest courier job brings her to them they rape her and leave her for dead. She goes to get revenge and meets Jack Raines who has met others like her and he works for intelligence freelance for Mossad, but he used to be a US asset, thought dead.

It turns out that the Hisanic seeming people are actually middle-eastern (see: Lazy racism} who are pretending to be Mexican, having been brought up in Mexico and they have a plan to explode some nuclear bombs in America with help from Russians and North Koreans

The more I think about this book the more I dislike it. It has a lot of government hating and lazy -isms and just made me queasy. It made me very reluctant to read more Terry Goodkind, the lack of compassion or empathy is wearying and I find it deeply unpleasant. ( )

I really like Terry Goodkind's ability to write interesting stories. I have read a series of his books. I had some problems with this one though. The heroine is not realistic in her abilities even beyond the step of being able to read killer's memories. The proposition that one can read memories of killers and even see memories by touching their brain with their fingers is not even remotely possible. It is an action packed novel but I cannot recommend it. ( )

This book reads like an action movie and if you are like me you'll go through it quickly as I couldn’t put it down. However, there are some things to be aware of. It is a very dark book, and isn’t for the faint of heart. There are vivid descriptions of horrific acts and foul language used to describe some very tragic events. Despite being captivated by the story, I almost didn't finish it because it went too far in some of these descriptions, so be prepared for that.

Angela Constantine is a fierce, yet clever protagonist. Her early life was fraught with hardship where her only refuge was with her grandparents. Her grandfather cared for her and taught her skills that prepared her for when her latent abilities come out. This combination turn her into a formidable force for fighting against the darkest that the world has to offer. I've heard criticism that the story is pretty far-fetched, but that's why we read books like these, isn't it? This book shows us once again Goodkind's ability to come up with original ideas and bring them to life.

If the extreme graphic details are dialed back, I would gladly read more installments that might be written in this storyline.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway (but was already a Goodkind fan from his Sword of Truth series). ( )