Book Review: The Eighth Sister by Robert Dugoni

I really like Dugoni’s writing style – he’s engaging and devises intriguing characters that jump to life off the page. His Sam Hell book is one of my favorite finds in 2018. This story had everything I enjoy – besides great characterization, there were spies and secret identities and lies and betrayal, which all make for a great tale. My only complaint is that this felt rather like two books cobbled into one…. (Hence only three stars.)

The first portion is all about the spy stuff – and it was EXCELLENT. Absolutely spot-on in recapturing the cold war spy thriller feel of Le Carre or DeMille. There’s action, adventure, palace intrigue, people being left out in the cold. No one is who they seem, everyone has an agenda of their own. GREAT stuff. Then the book shifted tone and the rest was pretty much courtroom drama – which is not usually my forte. That was also well done, don’t get me wrong, but the shift threw me a bit and left me wondering exactly what happened to the plot line from the beginning…

There was an implication of more to come (sort of), but I got the sense that was more about keeping possibilities for the main characters open than revisiting the spy plot that largely felt unfinished by the end. Still, an afternoon with a Dugoni novel is never time wasted – just don’t be surprised if you wind up with more than a few bits of unfinished business at the end…

Thanks to NetGalley for my review copy. The Eighth Sister releases in the U.S. on April 9, 2019.