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Title: Sometimes you wonder
Review: Novelists should be daunted by moments when a character describes his feelings. Shepherd, however, has the worst debriefing habit I've ever seen. Characters often discuss a scene that has just passed before readers' eyes, gambling that what the character says will align with what the reader feels. In this novel, people often say how much they were moved. What happens, however, if the reader wasn't, or, worse, if the scene before left the reader flat? In Shepherd's novel, we are supposed to believe in Henry's transformation. Through righting a list of wrongs, Henry "The Assassin" Chase is supposed to rediscover the idealist he once was. It's a fun premise, but for me the "supposed to" was its most vivid element. I never reacted as Shepherd thought I should, and who moves a reader by proffering he or she ought to react?
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