The Scholar of Extortion

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Bad Melodrama and Even Worse Editing - Rated
The title is a tenuous link--at best--to the story, the characters are poorly developed, the editing is comical, and the ending is purely idiotic. Gadney stocks this tome of tripe with a dull villain who doesn't flush toilets, a "romance" that has all the heat of a glacier, characters that speak with moronic simplicity or in disjointed riddles, melodramatic prose that wouldn't thrill a teenager, and a plot that is as thin as the ozone layer with about as many gaping holes. I have to give him credit, however, for finding someone willing to publish it without reading it.

The cover contains a review quote from the Sunday Times stating that Gadney is one of the best thriller writers around--obviously the reviewer read some other book by the author and not this one. Even if the editing weren't so poor (and it is the worst I have ever encountered in a publication that didn't come out of somebody's basement), there's nothing in this book that could save it.

Where are the publishers? - Rated
This is not the best from Reg Gadney's series following the career of Alan Rosslyn, previously HMC&E investigator and now in the private sector.

However well a book is plotted and written, bad editing can ruin the day. Gadney has suffered this before where a book carried another, earlier title on the back cover. In this case, scant attention has been paid to the text. In one case a whole paragraph has been repeated, clearly displaying the pre- and post- editing versions. And that's not the only error on the printed page.

In all fairness, if we consider Gadney's writing, nothing he has produced to date exceeds the original Rosslyn story of "Just When We Are Safest" and the subsequent "Mother, Son and Holy Ghost".

I looked forward to this book but found it extremely repetitive in describing the antagonist's habits. The relationships didn't gel or make logical sense in terms of the main characters' apparent love/hate scenario.

I discovered "Just When We Are Safest" in a shop selling remainders. That book did not deserve to be there. However, "The Scholar of Extortion", had it been better edited would not be heading in the same direction.

I don't know whether to critique the author or the editor - Rated
I gather this author has published several titles with Alan Rosslyn as the hero. I bought this book as I live in Hong Kong and I always like to see what authors say about it.
I was disappointed with this novel. Reg gets one star for managing to convey the conversations of the Chinese criminal elements into readable "Anglo-Mandarin"
Otherwise the book was about 200 pages too long and there were some very decided gaps in the plot-line.
A case in point was the love interest who went from wildly disinterested to putty in Rosslyn's hands. The jump was too much for me....there was no development.
I will be very interested to see what other people think of this book. The number of titles published tells me there are lots of Rosslyn/Gadney fans. I will be fascinated to see what they think.