Molly Foust reviewed PANIC by Jeff Abbott
Review of 'PANIC' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Calling all ye of low credulity! Panic started off like any average paperback suspense novel, but more than halfway through I realized that I hated it SO MUCH. So hackneyed! A rogue CIA operation called "The Deeps", really? I like a good spy novel, but I just don't believe in anything that happened in this book enough to even follow the ridiculous plot. Evan, our one dimensional protagonist in a one dimensional world, is an early 20 something with an Oscar nominee. He is inept and inane, and nobody else steps up to the plate to make you care either.
... I just believe that adult children might suspect at some level if their parents were involved in international espionage rather than travel photography. Even if the part about an Orphan farm in Ohio, where recruits are groomed by the CIA for special ops, was left out of the family …
Calling all ye of low credulity! Panic started off like any average paperback suspense novel, but more than halfway through I realized that I hated it SO MUCH. So hackneyed! A rogue CIA operation called "The Deeps", really? I like a good spy novel, but I just don't believe in anything that happened in this book enough to even follow the ridiculous plot. Evan, our one dimensional protagonist in a one dimensional world, is an early 20 something with an Oscar nominee. He is inept and inane, and nobody else steps up to the plate to make you care either.
... I just believe that adult children might suspect at some level if their parents were involved in international espionage rather than travel photography. Even if the part about an Orphan farm in Ohio, where recruits are groomed by the CIA for special ops, was left out of the family history.
However, all that aside, one just doesn't run around shooting and killing and stealing cars and car chases...for pages after endless pages, with impunity. Not in Texas.
If you believe that the CIA has almost magical powers, that there are conspiracies everywhere and rogue agents hatch plots like chickens hatch eggs, this might work. But when the CIA operative starts with his frank disclosure to our unlovable heroes, one realizes that people don't keep secrets very well, especially villains. And nowadays, there is no reason to create mayhem looking for some encrypted files, you could just deny it all and beg someone to prove you wrong.
It was basically a terrible action movie in book form. It should have just been made into a movie rather than waste those poor trees. I pity the oak that was felled to make this book.
