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Embassy Intrigue Reviewed By John Alleman of Bookpleasures.com
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John Alleman

Reviewer John M. Alleman: John holds a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the University of West Florida. His literary interests are numerous and eclectic, with a special affinity for environmental ethics and
metaphysics.

 
By John Alleman
Published on June 26, 2010
 

Author: Roger Neetz
ISBN: 978-1-58982-592-5
Publisher: American Book Publishing Group

Generally I do not find novels driven by political intrigue and embassy life terribly interesting, but Roger Neetz’s Embassy Intrigue managed to hold the attention of even me


Author: Roger Neetz
ISBN: 978-1-58982-592-5
Publisher: American Book Publishing Group

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Generally I do not find novels driven by political intrigue and embassy life terribly interesting, but Roger Neetz’s Embassy Intrigue managed to hold the attention of even me. Neetz, a man who spent his career working with the CIA, breathes life into a tale of clandestine operations and covert agendas surrounding a newly appointed diplomat’s introduction into the intricate web of international politics during the Cold War. Neetz’s writing style, organization of plot, and approach to his subject kept me turning the pages of a book that would have otherwise been likened to pulling teeth for me to finish. My only dissatisfaction with Embassy Intrigue is the sheer quantity of grammatical errors I ran across while reading. At times, I felt more like a proofreader than a reader.

Roger Neetz shows his prowess with the pen with his ability to manage a veritable myriad of characters who come and go as Embassy Intrigue progresses. Also, I found it refreshing that the sentence structures utilized throughout the novel were patient and deliberate with an overall pace that remained steady. With an uncanny anticipation of his readers’ short spans of attention, Neetz often changes the gears of his  narrative by switching perspectives and exploring different characters and angles of the events that unfold. Amidst the gear shifting, Neetz even found time to examine themes like religion, the ethics of might-makes-right, courage and cowardice, and many more with charm and brevity. These attributes combined make Embassy Intrigue a work of deft and thoughtful fiction.

That being said, I was very disappointed with how many grammatical errors I encountered throughout the novel. I lost count how many times “the” was erroneously used instead of “that”. What shocked me even further was that, for some reason, there were several cases where a character’s name was misspelled—I found an instance where the main character Eric Kempner’s last name was given an alternate spelling; also, Seymour Fogwell’s first name was misspelled once; Sam Jaffe’s last name was found missing a letter once; and even Phil Gotleib’s last name was incorrectly typed twice on the same page. There was also a case where an Ursula Benig inexplicably refers to Eric Kempner as Erica. These errors give the impression that the novel was published as an unfinished product, marring an otherwise proficiently written narrative.

Embassy Intrigue has an engaging plot written with effective sentence structure and overall pacing. Neetz used his prior life experience to weave a tale that feels as though it really happened. With perspective shifts and a thoughtful and deliberate writing style, I never felt myself getting bored. However, the poor editing of the novel is absolutely inexcusable.
Still, I must say, the strengths of Roger Neetz’s book far outweigh the weakness in editing. Overall, I recommend this novel to anyone with even the minutest interest in fiction driven by political intrigue.

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