The Night of Knives [Paperback]

The first few chapters of this book are gripping and interesting. However this does not make up for the rest of the book.

My first complaint is that these characters go through a lot, far more than any human could be expected to endure - and maybe I could buy into that if they were soldiers or at least had some military training, however we are expected to believe that the people going through this are a) a nurse/socialite & b) a computer analyst!!
The author also uses a theme frequently which is killing off main characters that you are beginning to get to know & like- the first time, this is shocking & interesting, but by the end of the book it is contrived & frustrating!

The story starts out as a kidnapping, this bit I found extremely interesting & had the book been all about this, I would have thought it a thrilling read but the later chapters go too far - we have a socialite & a computer analyst running all over Africa, trying to figure out something that any sane human would just leave behind!! I did not understand their reasoning for so desperately wanting to figure this all out. The characters were one dimensional and we needed to know their reasoning more which would have helped you empathise with these characters. As it were, I thought they were stupid & delusional rather than courageous like we were obviously meant to think. Some better thought out backstories & some less obvious villains would have made this a much more intelligent read.

Overall it was okay - its definitely not a book I would read again & there are much better thrillers out there. If the characters had been more realistic & had traits you could empathise with then this would have opened the story up to the reader, as it was I found it difficult to get to the end! I did however find the story of Zimbabwe interesting - however those chapters did read like a text book rather than a thriller, & I found myself more interested in the country than the characters!