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Title: Where's the beef?
Review: This is quite an enjoyable book, but it never gets into top gear. The pages turn over quite quickly, but neither the plot nor the characters are convincing or particularly interesting. There are too many characters and most of these are rendered purely for comic effect. The shabby villains are very reminiscent of the losers who perform similar functions in Graham Greene's early thrillers. They may work as amusing caricatures and one might argue that the book's collection of failed flamenco singers and useless ex-bullfighters is ironic - a mockery of other countries perceptions of Spain, but the book needs more than irony, jokes, lustful priests and glamorous aristocrats. Neither the Vatican nor the computer angles are rendered with much conviction and there are many long passages that add nothing to the slim plot or our understanding of the characters.
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