The Ferry to Nowhere…….    **

This is the third book by Michael Robotham and it falls short of the first two. Alisha Barba is resurrected and the novel is written in first person from her viewpoint.

First person narration can be fun to read and is difficult to write. Robotham shows he has yet to master the technique.  His attempt at first person made this a tedious read. This was surprising since his first two books had first person viewpoints also, and were fine. The repetition of “I” in this one was overdone.

In addition, there were too many loose threads left hanging. One example, when Alisha is picked up by the British equivalent of homeland security, she is suddenly released without a clear reason. Certain scenes were unbelievable and Alisha kept doing what I would call stupid things. She put herself in dangerous situations that contradicted her cop instinct. After a long description of her karate expertise, she is later overpowered by someone she should have been able to defend against.

There is a detailed description of human trafficking, as well as the prostitution in Amsterdam. While some of this is needed for the story, too much space was devoted to both.

There is no real mystery, no real twist, and no suspense. The ending is cliche.

This one gets two stars, should have been one but I added one for effort.