Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Wow. Just... wow. Let me provide some context for this review. I LOVE Stephen Hunter. I have read everything he has published, including his film criticism. The whole Swagger family saga, starting with Dirty White Boys, which set the background, and continuing through the historical novels and the more modern stuff, are maybe my favorite series of recent times. (Lee Child's Reacher novels are the only other books that come close, for me.) I pre-ordered this for Kindle six months ago and I had been waiting eagerly for it. I deliberately didn't start the new Harry Bosch because I knew this was coming online a day or two later. So, in case I didn't make it clear, I LOVE Stephen Hunter. I found "Soft Target" borderline unreadable. The plot was derivative (unless you're the only American thriller fan who never saw "Die Hard") and predictable pretty much from the first page to the last. The characters would have had to be fleshed out considerably to be called one-dimensional. The villains, both the perpatrators of the central crime and the bureaucrats who create additional hurdles for our hero to overcome (see "Die Hard," above) are particularly cartoonish. The politics are crude and unsubtle and grow tiresome after about 30 pages. I kept reading only because (a) I like to finish what I start; (b) I was on a seven hour flight; and (c) I kept hoping against hope that there would be some sort of last-chapter twist that would redeem what had come before. There wasn't. I can only say that I now regret every second I invested in this book. My time would have been better spent watching the last chapter of the Harry Potter series on the inflight entertainment system over and over until the landing lights went on. And if you only knew how much I hate Harry Potter, and how much I love Stephen Hunter (in case I didn't mention it already) you'd understand how much it pains me to say that. Thanks, Amazon, for providing me with this opportunity to vent.