Monday, October 22, 2018

Book review - "Manhunt" by Christian Jacq


This is one of those books I picked up thinking that it might lead to another interesting series of mysteries with an ancient Egypt setting.  Other authors have done so and successfully, too.  I had hoped Manhunt by Christian Jacq would be as good as they are.

I was wrong.

It has been quite some time since I have read a book so poorly written.  It has been translated from French into English so perhaps a lot got lost in the translation, but it was so messed up I finally stopped reading after I had read just over half it.

Jacq commits the cardinal sins of writing by constant head-hopping so much you don't know who's point of view the scene is in.  It makes reading very confusing.  He also uses huge data dumps and the ever intrusive narrator. In one scene, a woman speaks to the main character Kel and after only two greetings, she tells him her entire backstory.  

Huh?

Okay, Jacq.  You’re an expert on ancient Egypt.  We get it.

Characters are cardboard, not developed at all and dialogue is so choppy, it doesn’t flow like a conversation should.  One paragraph made absolutely no sense and I read it several times to figure it out. 

Maybe his non-fiction work is better written, but if you want a good ancient Egyptian mystery read Agatha Christie’s Death Comes as the End, or P. C. Doherty’s Amerokte series or Lauren Haney’s Lieutenant Bak series

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