My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Review: The Wilhelm Conspiracy

The Wilhelm Conspiracy The Wilhelm Conspiracy by Charles Veley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Performance: **
Story: ***

This is the 4th Lucy James mystery for me, having started out of order with Remember, Remember and then the Crown Jewel Mystery … and this is the weakest of the bunch. More action/adventure than mystery/thriller, the story inserts an average spy story on to the world stage of international politics between England and Germany before WWI … and doesn’t really return to its roots until the end after telegraphing where the mystery was ultimately headed well before that. Frankly the Uber weapon trope is way overdone, especially in an historical setting and where nominal details take up way too much time and space. Stir in a bewildering cast of famous/historical characters and we just don’t get much in the way of development for the title characters … which is why I tuned in. 

However, unlike the consensus that thought we had too much of Lucy here, I actually wanted more of her and less of Sherlock and/or Watson … especially as the portrayal of Sherlock just didn’t seem very good for me .. the ease with which the good guys appeared to be ineffectually running around and getting betrayed or duped or drugged et al. so often that it just seemed so out of character I had a hard time connecting. Keeping everybody straight was a little more difficult by the apparent lack of vocal range and limited diction applied to all characters by the narration, which was fairly average over all.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheWilhelmConspiracy #LucyJamesMystery #FreeAudiobookCodes #KindleUnlimited 

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.