Review Tuesday: WITHOUT MERCY by Jack Higgins

I have read some of Jack Higgins books in the past. His reputation as an excellent spy novel writer makes me keep coming back even though I feel his work runs and and cold. This time I read WITHOUT MERCY.

The Cold War starts heating up again when Russian agents are working in Ireland with the assistance of the IRA.

This book is part of a series, so maybe I'm missing something. To me good writing should answer any question you may have had from previous works in the current book. I didn't feel that was so in WITHOUT MERCY. You start right off in the middle of some big mess and no clue why Russian spies are on Irish soil. Plus there are so many characters and so little character development that you just don't care about these people at all. The pages turn slowly while you try to get caught up in the pace, but the book never grabbed me until I got the page 200 or so.

It seemed like tedious keystone cops nonsense to me. Not a great book, at least not as a stand-alone work. I was disappointed.