I’ve got translation work today (loud cheers from the gallery!), so I’m going to just drop this semi-review of True Conviction, a book I didn’t complete. I quit reading before the end because it annoyed me in a number of ways, and I figure I ought to warn you against it. But I won’t post the cover because I don’t want to rub it in. The thing is, trashing a book I didn’t like can be an exercise in self-righteousness (even when the author’s way more successful than I am).

Here’s the setup – Adrian Hell (that’s his name) is a professional hit man and (we are told) a legend in the field. He is (he claims) an ethical assassin. He’ll only kill bad guys.

And yet, the first job he takes at the beginning of True Conviction is to kill a businessman who backed out on a land deal with a Nevada mob boss – the guy may be corrupt, but does that deserve death? Then Adrian gets in a fight with his employer and ends up on the run, and he meets an attractive female assassin, and… I lost interest.

First of all, I didn’t believe the Adrian Hell character. He’s always talking about how tough he is. That’s a sure sign – in literature, anyway – that he’s not as tough as he wants you to think. (In real life, I suspect it may be quite common for really tough guys to be loudmouths, but in literature we’ve learned that it’s cool reserve that earns the reader’s respect.)

Secondly, the book was overwritten. The author doesn’t trust the reader to figure out what he’s saying, so he explains EVERYTHING. Including his little jokes – which might work as little jokes if he didn’t inflate them to the bursting point.

Maybe you’d like True Conviction better than I did. Apparently they sell a lot of copies.