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Title: Great beginning, but downhill from there...
Review: This book is sold on its remarkable opening sentence. Alas, it's downhill from there. Well, not quite, but almost. That is, up until the author detours to give us the backstory (after just a couple of chapters), it is a gripping narrative. Unfortunately, the backstory is much, much longer than it needs to be--the author losing his focus, it seems, and falling into repetitive and unnecessary detail. Then, when he finally takes us back to real time, the ending is without surprise or irony and I, for one, shrugged and wondered why I had invested the effort.The writing, to be sure, is good. Not great, but good, and I wonder if all the historical footnotes are for our benefit, as they certainly don't help move the story along, or the author's need to prove how much research he did.
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