Fair Play (Josh Lanyon)
3.5 stars
I loved Fair Game which was released four years ago. I thought it was engaging with familiar type of story coming from Josh Lanyon. Truthfully, I didn't think the story NEEDED a sequel. Having said that, since I proclaimed myself a Lanyon fan, when I saw there was a new story about Tucker and Elliott, I had to read it. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, the sequel didn't live up to my expectation -- even if I already set it low considering I didn't see the sequel as necessary in the first place.
The good stuffs... well, I did like the difficult dynamic relationship between Elliott and his father. Yes, his father. Not Tucker. That one fell to my 'bad' stuffs. Anyway, in my review for Fair Game, I wrote "I think. It's great reading those scenes between Elliott and his father". I genuinely thought that parental figure was uncommon in Lanyon's books so I welcomed Roland with open hands. It was really good to read about an older generation who was a former radical and against government but ended up having a son who used to work in FBI. Both of them were very stubborn too. So the push-pull between father and son was the element I wholeheartedly enjoyed from this story. Besides, everything that Elliott did to uncover the mystery of who targeted his father -- despite Roland being adamant of Elliott chasing the clues -- was because he loved Roland.
The not-so-good stuffs ... I guess it came down to the historical context of this story. I am not an American. The 60's America is totally different with the 60's Indonesia. So it was quite hard for me to build up interest on something quite too political, related to America in the 60's, which was the basis of the mystery. Oh, it was okay to read about this bunch of young radical groups but at the same time, I didn't really care about it. Not like it made any impact on me what-so-ever, you know?
Now, the bad stuffs ... at least for me. I spent majority of this book being pretty annoyed with Elliott. In how he handling the mystery, in how he dealt with his father, AND how he dealt with Tucker. Duly noted that Lanyon is the best when presenting miscommunication between the lovers ... like the silent treatment or the unspoken words, they just work really well from Lanyon's pen ... but this time, I just thought that Elliott was being unfair to Tucker.
No matter the situation, Elliott was still the civilian and Tucker the FBI agent. So asking Tucker for help with the mystery, when it could bring trouble to Tucker, and then being prickly about it, well, it made me want to knock Elliott on the head. I also didn't like how Elliott was questioning how Tucker felt for him, whether he thought Elliott wasn't important. What was wrong with you, Elliott?!? At some point I did understand some of Elliott's stance, but still, I wasn't really happy with him.
So in overall, the not-so-good stuffs and the bad stuffs made me only able to give this 3.5 stars on my rating spectrum. It wasn't bad, I liked some parts of it, but this was the kind of sequel which I wasn't sure was significant in the whole grand scheme of thing.
Thank You Carina Press and Netgalley.
The review is based on ADVANCED UNCORRECTED PROOFS provided by the publisher via Netgalley for an exchange of fair and honest review. No high rating is required. I assume any error will be edited and cleaned for the published version.
I loved Fair Game which was released four years ago. I thought it was engaging with familiar type of story coming from Josh Lanyon. Truthfully, I didn't think the story NEEDED a sequel. Having said that, since I proclaimed myself a Lanyon fan, when I saw there was a new story about Tucker and Elliott, I had to read it. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, the sequel didn't live up to my expectation -- even if I already set it low considering I didn't see the sequel as necessary in the first place.
The good stuffs... well, I did like the difficult dynamic relationship between Elliott and his father. Yes, his father. Not Tucker. That one fell to my 'bad' stuffs. Anyway, in my review for Fair Game, I wrote "I think. It's great reading those scenes between Elliott and his father". I genuinely thought that parental figure was uncommon in Lanyon's books so I welcomed Roland with open hands. It was really good to read about an older generation who was a former radical and against government but ended up having a son who used to work in FBI. Both of them were very stubborn too. So the push-pull between father and son was the element I wholeheartedly enjoyed from this story. Besides, everything that Elliott did to uncover the mystery of who targeted his father -- despite Roland being adamant of Elliott chasing the clues -- was because he loved Roland.
The not-so-good stuffs ... I guess it came down to the historical context of this story. I am not an American. The 60's America is totally different with the 60's Indonesia. So it was quite hard for me to build up interest on something quite too political, related to America in the 60's, which was the basis of the mystery. Oh, it was okay to read about this bunch of young radical groups but at the same time, I didn't really care about it. Not like it made any impact on me what-so-ever, you know?
Now, the bad stuffs ... at least for me. I spent majority of this book being pretty annoyed with Elliott. In how he handling the mystery, in how he dealt with his father, AND how he dealt with Tucker. Duly noted that Lanyon is the best when presenting miscommunication between the lovers ... like the silent treatment or the unspoken words, they just work really well from Lanyon's pen ... but this time, I just thought that Elliott was being unfair to Tucker.
No matter the situation, Elliott was still the civilian and Tucker the FBI agent. So asking Tucker for help with the mystery, when it could bring trouble to Tucker, and then being prickly about it, well, it made me want to knock Elliott on the head. I also didn't like how Elliott was questioning how Tucker felt for him, whether he thought Elliott wasn't important. What was wrong with you, Elliott?!? At some point I did understand some of Elliott's stance, but still, I wasn't really happy with him.
So in overall, the not-so-good stuffs and the bad stuffs made me only able to give this 3.5 stars on my rating spectrum. It wasn't bad, I liked some parts of it, but this was the kind of sequel which I wasn't sure was significant in the whole grand scheme of thing.
Thank You Carina Press and Netgalley.
The review is based on ADVANCED UNCORRECTED PROOFS provided by the publisher via Netgalley for an exchange of fair and honest review. No high rating is required. I assume any error will be edited and cleaned for the published version.
4
2