Disclosure (Michael Crichton)

[**] ISBN: 9780345391056

I'm torn on this one. The story finally sort of paid off. But I actually set it aside for a couple of weeks to read The Golden Compass. It's not that it was bad, the writing was OK. I just didn't care for the characters that much, one of the scenes actually made me very uncomfortable (and not just in the way the author intended), and some of the action hit too close to home (high-tech company politics). That last point could be a little disingenuous on my part, since it's one of the things that attracted me to the book in the first place. I guess I found that I wasn't quite over my recent encounter with that sort of thing (not the sexual harassment stuff per se, just politics).

Anyway, after I picked it up again, the story finally seemed to click and I enjoyed the mystery angle of it all. And I think this type of story will help with the one I'm currently writing, so that's good. But I think there were just a few too many characters, there was a genuine deus ex machina character at the end (someone that had been given one previous scene and then conveniently brought back out of the blue to provide critical information at the critical moment), and I lost a little respect when the author didn't quite get his local facts straight. There is no "Queen Anne's hill" in Seattle. It's simply Queen Anne hill. Wish I could give this three stars, but it only gets two.