Access In Flames Originated By Richard Hilary Weber Accessible As Mobi

couldn't connect with this book, I didn't manage to identify with any of the characters nor become involved in the story, There was a lot of descriptive text but very little seemed to happen until the very end, It had a very depressing ending, not a book I would call a thriller, Dan Shedrick takes a job as a junior architect at an American firm in San Iñigo and it doesn't take him long before he starts an affair with the wife of a resort owner.
But then everything goes south when a radio personality is murdered, . .

This is a very short book, I read it quickly, but it has taken me ages to write this review.
Usually, I try to write the review as soon as possible while everything is fresh in my head, But I had quite a lot of time before this review would be up and frankly I have put it off a bit.
I still try to grasp what the point of the book was, I thought the murder was the important part when I started reading the book, but now I'm not sure, Is this a spy novel Is this some kind of firstlovegonebadbook I have actually no idea it didn't feel like a thriller.
It felt that the book was built up by a lot of descriptions and way too long dialogs,
I still don't understand why the radioman was killed, There was never really an explanation for it, I just wished the book had focused on the murder, got an explanation for it, Skipped the spying and the kidnapping part or at least made it more in tuned with the rest of the story, It would probably also has been a good idea to make Dan a more interesting a likable character, what did he do all the day Work No idea, he seemed just to drink rum and sleep with his lover all the time.
. .

This book left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction, If it would have been longer and the story more explored would it have been a much more enjoyable reading experience,

I received a copy from the publisher and sitelinkTLC Book Tours in return for an honest review! Originally published at sitelinkReading Reality

I finished this last night, and Im still not quite sure what it is intended to be.
It takes stabs sometimes literally at a lot of different genres and ideas, but never quite settles on one or the other or the other.


At first we have a young man on a tropical island, While it sounds like paradise, it obviously is not, Dan Shedrick is a recently minted architect with a degree from Princeton, and no job prospects, Its not him, its the Great Recession, Jobs for new graduates, along with everyone else, took a multiyear nosedive,

This may just be my own background showing, but “Shedrick” reads way too much like “Shmendrik”, which is Yiddish for “stupid person”.
The resonance was strong because Dan Shedrick comes off as a “shmendrik”, He is stupid, or at least clueless throughout much of the book, In sitelinkThe Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten, a shmendrik is defined as an apprentice shlemiel, meaning loser or fool, Dan is certainly both of those, too,

I would say I just digressed, but Im not sure I did, Dan embodies both of those dubious qualities through the entire story, It was a concept that I could not get out of my head,

Dan gets a job, but not in the U, S. He becomes a contractor for the U, S. based Xy Corp. , designing oil rigs and other architectural/engineering constructs, on the tropical island San Iñigo, The place is described as lawless and dangerous outside of the protected zones, and Dan sees the gun emplacements surrounding the airport as solid proof.
The U. S. is propping up a corrupt government in order to get access to the offshore oil and other natural resources, and Xy Corp.
is their chief contractor. Or chief extractor.

Of course there are rebels who want their island and their country back, I say “of course” because that is the common narrative for these type of stories, and it is also the narrative in the news about many such places.


Dan gets sucked in to the strange otherness of the expat community on San Iñigo, He is seduced by the lifestyle of clinging to the protected zones, his own former countrymen,

and living a life of relative luxury at the golf and tennis club while he drinks his nights away.
He is also seduced by the young wife of the club owner, totally oblivious to the fact that Elaine seduces every man in the club for ends that are only vaguely realized or understood.


Even when Dan is recruited by the local U, S. CIA Station Chief to operate a listening post for the U, S. Government and its interests in San Inigo, Dan remains oblivious to the sheer number of people who are using and manipulating both him and the San Inigo officials.


Until Elaine literally throws him to the wolves and he finds himself kidnapped by the local rebels by mistake, He sinks into his own “heart of darkness” as he battles the jungle with his captors, and then battles against them and that same jungle in order to escape.


Once he is out, he discovers that he is not really free, and that he never has been, Just as he was used by everyone on all sides prior to his kidnapping, he emerges only to realize that everyone has plans to use him and his story for their own ends once he has escaped.


And there doesnt seem to be anything he can do to stop them,

Escape Rating C: For this reader, the problem was that the story started out with multiple possible plot lines, and ended up absolutely nowhere.
Dan Shedrick was a shmendrik,

Because the story is told entirely from Dans pointofview, we only know what he knows and only see what he sees.
And Dan never does seem to know very much, Even at the end, he only thinks hes figured out what is going on in tropical San Iñigo and with Elaine.
It doesnt ever feel as if he either finds or discovers anything like the whole truth, Which means that we dont either,

There are lots of secrets hinted at but none are ever revealed, Elaine might have been sleeping her way through the San Iñigo government, The U. S. might is probably propping up a corrupt dictatorship through proxies and military contractors, Dan is almost certainly being used by the U, S. propaganda machine, but he and we never get to the bottom of why,

This might be more tolerable if Dan were a more interesting or even sympathetic character, I never cared about him, so I didnt care what happened to him, In Flames is not quite a mystery, but did not have the breakneck pace of a thriller, It did leave me with a lot of questions about San Iñigo, and especially about who was using who, .