True to my word, another Crichton novel!
Now I shall be honest and say that I wasn't all that excited about reading this novel about murder in the corporate world. Perhaps because most things to do with business and large corporate bodies bore me. Or perhaps I have vague recollections of the movie version (which I'm not even sure I've seen, to be honest).
But, anyway, I was greatly surprised by this book. It's fast paced, engaging, well structured and is very much a page turner that certainly does not bore.
Now, I am a fan of detective fiction and there is something of that genre in these pages and the plot is well devised and busy, which may be a little confusing at times.
The insights into what goes on behind the corporate scenes are quite fascinating and, unlike 'Congo', such factual information is told in a manner which does not at all remove the reader from the book. Instead they are told as part of the story and this integration is one of the strong points of the writing. Crichton's research (as evidenced in the bibliography) pays off dividends.
We follow two primary detective characters throughout and they are interesting ones at that, surrounded by various others that feed into the plot to varying degrees. These inter-relationships are another strong point in the plot though some are left unresolved at the conclusion of the novel.
The book is not so much about the murder of a young woman as it is a essay on the pitfalls of modern (at least for the time of the book's writing) business and international relationships.
But it's still a heady, full speed, thrill of a novel.
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