Review of The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018) by D C — 09 Nov 2018

Two problems:

1.) I don't believe this character, even in the first of the series, can carry a whole movie - the laconic, asexual, grim seriousness doesn't give movie emotions a 'dynamic range' to engage the audience. It barely carried the first movie, and that was because the journalist was the lead point of view. In this installment, he and every one else was a Christmas tree ornament.

2.) The plot was an awful hodge-podge of gorge-inducing tropes, with cartoon sister villain, bad-dad blame magnet, annoying autistic boy wonder, bad Russians temporarily distracted from interfering in U.S. elections, CIA operatives whose cover is mysteriously blown from the get-go, and on, and on.

For the next book:

1.) make 'the Girl' a partner character.

2.) Put someone else in as the focus.

3.) Ditch the 'save-the-world' plot for and intense, physically compact geography story of survival. Examples like 'Road Warrior' come to mind. Evil people do not need nuclear weapons to menace the characters.

4.) For cripes sake include some humor (not irony!). Provide something for the faux seriousness to contrast against.