The President’s Daughter by John Locke
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Hitman, Donovan Creed, finds the billion dollars in his Swiss bank account missing, and his wife tries to kill him. To add insult to injury, a mobster offers him $1500 to kill a dog that bit him. Eventually, the president’s chief of staff offers him eight million to kidnap president’s daughter. Well, a guy has to make a living, so he takes the job, only to discover that this has been in works for years, and a veritable troop of look-alikes and body doubles are on the government’s payroll. Creed’s overly complex plan evaporates when the president’s daughter voluntarily lets herself be kidnapped.
Okay, it’s a silly story. Now, I’m not one to criticize a silly story. I may have been guilty of writing one or two myself. The President’s Daughter, however, is a bit much. Creed and his partner, Callie, have sex with and kill everyone they meet. The body count is astronomical, and I only recall disposing of two bodies, yet no one seems too concerned to arrest them. The wackiness aside, this book has some issues that don’t appeal to me. It bounces back and forth from past tense to present tense, and it shifts viewpoints from first person narration by the main character to third person narration by unimportant characters. It has its bright moments and a few flashes of humor. Mr. Locke is not shy about claiming some pretty impressive credentials, including million-seller status. This is apparently true. That worries me about the nature of the reading public, but I can’t fault his success.
For $.99 I was willing to give it a try. It’s now $2.99, but if you feel inclined, here’s the link:
Highly Opinionated 