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Title: Nothing like Free to Trade
Review: Ridpaths third novel is further evidence of a downward trend. The main character Nick is not someone who generates reader sympathy. What are we to make of him when he ditches his girlfriend in a critical scene mid way thro' the book? Or when he makes a play for his best friends wife? Nick is also naive in the extreme eg "What exactly is money laundering?". Nick is a drip who should have stayed in acedemia - why was he hired for his Russian expertise when no use of this is ever made by his bank? All the characters have faces which "redden" - even middle aged folk? Basic errors abound - Lord Kerton is about forty - then ten pages later he is near retirement age? The dialogue lacks conflict. The prose is laboured and pedantic. As someone else has mentioned - who can believe that a lone English guy can take on the Brazilian drug lords? Nice cover though.
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