The Killing Ground

I am half way through this book, and now I know why some reviewers questioned that Higgins even wrote it. I am a huge fan of this author and series. I love Dillon and the gang, but in this book, hardly any of them are recognizable. Higgins books are usually spare in adjectives and descriptions, and that’s the way I like it. Some of the book is written in his usual style, and that’s where the characters and dialogue shine. The story is an interesting one, but it almost seems as though this book were written by two separate people, and going by the dialogue and description, it sounds like a woman. It’s almost as though Higgins passed the book off to someone else to meet a deadline, then saw that the book was poorly executed, and took it back to fix it. I can’t believe that Jack Higgins wrote anything this bad, and as I say, I am half convinced that he didn’t. There are two different voices in this book. One is pure Higgins, and the other is Higgins in junior high. When you read the book, you will be struck by this. It seems as though half the book were written by someone using an outline, and they tried to stay faithful to the characters and outline, but failed utterly. The prose doesn’t leap off the page and drag you by the throat until the last page, as it normally would. The characters and dialogue are barely even one dimensional, so flat, lifeless, and boring do they seem. This book does a disservice to the entire series. If this were my first time at the rodeo, I’d have gotten off the horse and jumped the fence two hundred pages ago. I will not abandon Higgins, since the books that came after this one are in his usual excellent style. This one is a pallid imitation, and proves that imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery, even if you are imitating yourself. I bought this book for five bucks including shipping and handling, and while it was a good price, it was too much money for what amount to a bargain bin book. This just simply can not be Jack Higgins. Certainly it is not the Jack Higgins we know and love. The worst part about the book, is that just when it gets interesting, faux Higgins takes over, and you are back to wondering why on earth you should care about any of the characters and what they are doing. Sean Dillon needs to step off the pages of the book, and beat the living daylights out of whoever it was that coauthored this one, even if that someone really is Jack Higgins. Half the book is very good, and the other half, well, give it half your attention and then you won’t be disappointed.

I really wanted to give this 2.5 stars. It’s not really worth 3. Lots of characters, and you never get to know any particularly well. The plot sometimes moves so sluggishly that I wanted to put the book down. At other times, so much happened simultaneously that it stretched credibility.

I found it interesting that both sides benefitted substantively from serendipity. Life isn’t really that random. Or maybe it is.

In any event, I’m not rushing out to buy the next Jack Higgins novel.

This book was not too terrible. But it was not too good either. Simply put Dillon is rather shallow in this one. He is very tired he seems to have lost his Irish charm. There is no wit to him anymore. I remember when he used to bust in to a back room of some pub or other and shoot some bad guy’s knee out for cursing in front of the ladies or some other good reason. He simply has grown tired and shallow and there is none of that Sean Dillon charm here.

Now as far as the plot goes it was rather interesting but yet there were too many plot lines that went nowhere. The ending however was the worst I have ever read from Higgins I agree that it was way to rushed and needed to be fleshed out a little. If not for the this book would have been great shallowness and all.

I have read all the Dillon books and this one is simply the worst. But like I said even in that this would have been great but the ending was terrible.

In conclusion the Dillon’s crew is getting tired and hopefully there will be some kind of resurrection in Rough Justice(the next one). If not I would recommend you skip out on any new books coming from this series cause there is obviously no merciful end in sight.

I have to give Mr. Higgins some benefit of doubt and rate this one a three

Very confusing to follow. Many character’s names were too similar so it was hard to keep track of who was doing what. Also, switches from one story line to the next was very abrupt making it hard to know where you were in the overall story. The book seemed to have been written in a rush without thought to how the reader would follow the stories within the overall story.

All I can say is that it is a really good read and fits what I want in entertainment. I am slowly reading all is work.

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