The Digital Renaissance: Review: Palladium

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Review: Palladium

Palladium by Leigh Turner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ***

Set in Istanbul, a mysterious group known as the “Elders” has recruited several terrorists teams to “End the West” through a terrorist attack on the city. There is a loose connection to an ancient artifact known as the Palladium, which must first be obtained to ensure the attack would succeed, so one team steels it and abducts the archeologist that found it (the rationale for the latter is a bit thin when it is revealed much later). Fortunately, her brother Orhan is a Turkish policeman and her lover is a former British SIS officer who are on the job to get her back. Along the way they seem to always be just a step behind as the story drags on and on. Frequently there was way too much detail injected into the story and then continually repeated while doing little to advance the story, with some of the details were a bit questionable; but not enough to really detract from the overall enjoyment of the story … just don’t think about it too much and you will be fine. Over all, the lot was fairly predictable and the story mechanical enough that I had difficulty connecting to characters and plot; however, it was decent enough for light entertainment.

The narration was also pretty average … every now and then the pacing was a bit off to feel natural and the performance had difficulty differentiating the voices, but it wasn’t too hard to keep it all separate.

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

#Palladium #FreeAudiobookCodes

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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.