Highly offensive, poorly written
I'm not a fan of Dubya but this book represents one of the most offensive attempts to push a political worldview that I've yet seen --- and one of the most incompentant.

The sheer idea that none of the victim's families are grief-stricken after their husbands, daughters, and wives are killed and trussed-up in ridiculous, degrading tableaux would be laughable if it weren't so sick.

What sinks this book however, is not it's heavy-handed politics.... it's the adolescent style prose. Ablow seems unable to construct sentences longer than a few words, his characters are nothing but talking heads, numerous sideplots abound that if well written could be compelling, but as they are they're mere filler. And yes, the book, as another reader noted, is filled with BLANK SPACE. Chapters that should be nothing more than a scene-break abound.

What really galled me, when I managed to make it to the end, is the sudden switch to non-character specific narration in Chapter 52. If the author choosed to use his own voice before this point, it may have worked, though with prose this badly written it is hard to tell. This was just the final nail in the coffin, but it's a good measure of the ineptness of the book.

The character of West Crosse is interesting, but, like other inventions of Ablow, he's not developed as anything but a right-wing whack-job. He could have been so much more, but that might have compromised Ablow's agenda. As I said, I am NOT a Dubya-lover or Republican, but this book is nothing but poorly-written propaganda.

It's sad that so much crime/thriller fiction has to be this incompetantly helmed, but I guess it's what sells as "entertainment."

One thing it did do for me, though, was provide insight that Dems can be as zealous as Repubs in ramming their ideas down other people's throats at whatever the cost. For that, I give it one star. Oh.... I can't give it zero? Oh well.

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