Elizabeth Ramsay, Editor and Tutor
  • Home
  • Tutoring
  • Book Editing
  • Book Coach
  • Academic Editing
  • Book Talk Blog
  • About
  • Education Writer
  • Contact
  • Freebies
  • Email
  • LinkedIn

Reverend Dumb by Mike Scantlebury

9/5/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
​Reverend Dumb
The Mickey from Manchester Series, Book 10
2016
Self
Mike Scantlebury
A quick and easy read.
The WSB appears to be in charge of Britain’s security forces in this novel. It is never clear what the acronym stands for, but the office seems to be an anti-terrorism task force. Their top agents Mickey and Melia are there to keep Britain safe from terrorists. Unfortunately, Melia is in the hospital and Mickey is busy looking after her, so it falls to Deputy Director Caulfield and Terry the IT guy to fill the void. With Britain on the verge of splitting from the EU, now is the time the terrorists will strike. There is also a Chinese delegation running around town with murky motives and ties to Christian extremists. 
The novel follows the adventures of Deputy Director Caulfield of WSB in British security. He is assigned to the Chinese delegation to discover the depths of their ties with Christian terrorists. The delegation is travelling with Reverand Umh, a Christian minister who was an active protester when Hong Kong was repatriated. Caulfield knew him during this time period. During the course of the delegation’s visit, three of them are killed. The unit is forced to fight a man power shortage to find out what is going on.
What is going on? That is the perennial question as the novel jumps all over the place, telling you about this event or that. The novel reads as a series of loosely connected vignettes. The author’s style of telling instead of showing is confusing as he tends to lead up to action scenes and then, skip over them to relay them later in retrospect or often, not at all. Reading Reverend Dumb often feels like reading half a novel as you keep waiting for the part that explains what’s going on and links the disparate scenes together and it never comes.
What is there is fast paced and interesting, but leaves the reader deeply confused about what story the author is trying to tell, what is happening to his characters, and why we should care. This may be the author’s intent, to showcase the confusion often felt by laymen around security personnel and politicians, yet he needs to tone it down a bit so that the reader can still follow the plot. This has the seeds of a great suspense novel, but as it now stands it is a quick dive into inanity.  
0 Comments

    Author

    Elizabeth Ramsay is  English tutor and ESL Teacher.

    Archives

    February 2018
    June 2017
    May 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016

    Categories

    All
    Anthony Johns
    B.A.
    Bachelor Auction
    Beginner's Luck
    Beth Trissel
    Book Promotion
    Book Review
    Careers
    Celebrity Romance
    Cera Daniels
    Charlene Sands
    Contemporary Romance
    Cops And Robbers
    Corinne Scott
    Cover Reveal
    Cupid And Psyche
    Embracing The Knight
    English Literature
    Faerie
    Fantasy
    Finding Work
    First Nations
    Futuristic
    Historical
    Humanities
    Jenn Langston
    Job Hunting
    Job Prospects
    Jobs
    Job Skills
    Leaving Academia
    Liberation Origins
    Life Skills
    M.A.
    Mental Illness
    Meredith Bond
    My Lord Ghost
    Mystery
    Next Steps
    Non-fiction
    Picture Perfect
    Reality TV
    Recruiters
    Release Day Blitz
    Romance Novel
    Romantic Suspense
    Ruth Kaufman
    Science Fiction
    Second Chance
    Shape Shifters
    Spritual
    Suicide
    Superheroes
    Suspense
    Tammy Bailey
    The Panther Moon
    Thriller
    Top Ten Lists
    Urban Fantasy
    Vampire Romance
    Vigilante Mine
    Wendy Lynn Clark
    Young Adult

    RSS Feed

    View my profile on LinkedIn
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photo used under Creative Commons from D Simmonds
  • Home
  • Tutoring
  • Book Editing
  • Book Coach
  • Academic Editing
  • Book Talk Blog
  • About
  • Education Writer
  • Contact
  • Freebies
  • Email
  • LinkedIn