Every once in a while you run across a book and you just wonder: Why?

I'm working hard on clearing out my backlog of ARC books and this stood as one of the oldest books in my queue. I hadn't gotten around to reading it - for no particular reason - and decided I should give it a read. The idea sounded pretty interesting - essentially a female James Bond character. Upon reflection, I couldn't think if there was such a character in literature (there must be, but I don't know of any) and this sounded like a great idea.

But an idea is not a book.

From the very beginning I was not engaged in the story or the characters. I struggled to stay with the story because the quality of the writing was weak. This was a classic case of 'telling' rather than 'showing' (Writing 101: Show, don't tell). I stopped highlighting examples of this after just a couple of chapters in.

In typical Bond-like fashion, our main character, Alex, is as comfortable between the sheets as she is behind a Glock. Possibly even more-so than the popular Bond. This book included sex scene after sex scene, most of them (though not all) rather pedantic.

Alex travels the globe, sleeping around, and somehow performs some secret agent-y work along the way. But really, we don't care.

Looking for a good book? <em>The Very Secret Weapon</em> by Tillman Gilson should remain secret.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.