The Short Drop (Gibson Vaughn) Hardcover – December 1, 2015

Based upon the 3000+ reviews in just a month, and the rather high rating, I was definitely looking forward to The Short Drop, so you can imagine my surprise when I found that almost the complete first half of the novel, billed as a political thriller, was nothing but an excruciatingly slow set up for the second half of the book. Truly, other than finding out a few bits and pieces on the backgrounds of several of the lead characters (it's really more of a team effort than a single protagonist), the only thing that really "happens" in the entire first half of the novel is the recounting of the kidnapping of the current VP's daughter (who is now running for President), from 10 years earlier. Had it not been for the many positive reviews driving me on to find out what was so great about this book, I would definitely have stopped reading well before I got to the halfway point. While the writing was fairly crisp, the one thing that became particularly irksome was the repetitiveness of the author's sentence structure, which was basically, "The man did such and such." Again and again and again, and in a row. Not the sign of of professional writer in my humble opinion, who would or should know better, to vary the sentence structure to keep it from becoming so monotonous. That said, I did enjoy the second half of the book which did keep moving from beginning to end, holding my interest without my having to push myself to read it like I did for the first half of the book. This, however, then brings me to a rather troubling criticism, and one which should not be taken lightly. Perhaps it's, as they say, just a case of great minds thinking alike, but about a year and a half ago, I read a novel entitled, "The Moroni Deception," the quite memorable plot of which, has managed to stay with me this whole time (unlike a lot of formulaic thriller novels where you can barely recount the plot details a week later from the twelve previous that you read). So, when the central plot line in The Short Drop turned out to be the fact that a current Presidential candidate's 13 year old daughter had been kidnapped, I merely wrote that off as a coincidence. Then soon after, when a sociopathic assassin, on orders from who would appear to be the mysterious central villain, begins stalking the unsuspecting protagonist with orders to kill him if he should find what he is searching for, I was like, well that's certainly more that quite a bit coincidental also. But the near identical reveals in the finale, which I won't give away as a spoiler, I was now almost convinced went way beyond coincidence, and in retrospect, now seems like the majority of the very few plot lines in The Short Drop, are just several of the twists and subplots straight out of The Moroni Deception. While these plot lines provided the central and ultimately intriguing story in The Short Drop (the second half anyway), I don't think that is a good thing if they were in fact "borrowed."

The Short Drop by Matthew Fitzsimmons is one of those books that got pretty popular with thousands of reviews on Amazon yet I have no idea how. It's really one of those things that is so mysterious to me but when I saw it on sale for $1.99, I quickly swiped it up. Everyone needs to read a good mystery story from time to time. I don't think I've ever used the word "meh" in any of my reviews. It's unprofessional and well, not really a word at all. But I just can't help but label this book as anything but "meh". I'm sorry author, but I had to do it. The "reveal" was hardly anything worth plowing through this 400 page book for. Characters teetered on the borderline of me not really caring for. Not to mention, a closure with characters that literally, and I mean literally had me blurting out the words "Are you serious?". All this combined to make me drop that three letter bomb on this book.The author does give us characters that are at least believable in that they aren't dodging bullets every other chapter like the second coming of the matrix. However, these very same characters are very cookie cutter like and stereotypical. Like hmm, where have we met these guys before? Oh that's right, every other book out there. I can almost guarantee that by the time you finish with the book, you'll hardly remember any of them the day after.The pacing of the story was a bit slow going but I didn't have any trouble following the plot or what was going on. The actual writing was average in that he did just enough to not make me fall asleep or stop reading altogether. Some of the cliff hangers at the end of the chapters made sure I read just a little more than I should. The biggest disappointment with this book was the actual mystery itself. Once that tiny bit of hint was dropped, I kept thinking please don't do what I think you're going to do. Please don't. Ah crap. You did.The other disappointment came from how things actually ended or unfolded with a couple of the character at the end. It was just mind boggling to me of how the author chose to end it. It was hilarious but in a very bad way. I definitely have to drop the hammer in my spoiler section below.As you can gathered, my review is pretty negative. There's not much to like and many of the ideas used could have been more original. It just felt like something was holding the author back. If he could have been more daring, I think the story might have interested me a lot more.************SPOILERS BELOW************Billy - A littleclosure would have been nice since he loved Suzanne so much. He most likely would have found out about what happened to Lombard in the end but again, a little closure for the story would have been nice.George - You did him dirty. We follow him for the better part of the book and we have no idea what happens to him in the end. I can only assume that Jenn was able to find and save him.Tinsley - Let's be friends? Are you serious? Let's be friends? After all that talk about the meaning of time for Tinsley throughout the book, I expected something a lot more clever in the end than "Let's be friends". Come on man.Lombard - Biggest joke of a closure I have read in a while. After all that, we as the readers don't even get to witness the final exchange between Lombard and his wife when she confronted him. You serious author? Why even devout sections to Lombard if all you're going to do is this in the end and block it out for the readers? It was a waste of time. I would have expected for the big, bad and witty politician to put up a fight and at least deny things. In fact, there wasn't even condemning evidence as Tinsley had the report! All the wife had was some writing in Suzanne's book which could have been misconstrued for something else if he played it smart!

Don't know who to give the most credit too on this well written book, the author or his editor. Both I am sure. Love the depth of his first book and the many angles it took without loosing the reader or seeming irrelevant or poorly placed in the flow of the story. Glad the editor did not try to influence the author to put a romance twist to this one either. To get a book to sell the sexual innuendos frustrate me giving the impression that it's a lazy way to hold a readers interest. Not this book, it appears that the author very much knows his talent and his editor allowed that talent to shine through. Very refreshing to have an important female character and not take the sexual magnetism direction that was not needed and very refreshing with a speck of tension it left you lingering with. I didn't check for facts but you were made to feel there was well researched material in the IT category. The problem with a good book is you finish way too soon and your next read makes yearn for more because you are missing your new foundbuddies and simulated bravery it's instilled in you.

I was a bit wary about trying a thriller with a political theme, as it's not usually what I enjoy. However this book was surprisingly to my taste, probably because the politics are well mixed in with other threads such as friendship and loyalty. The characters are interesting and quite well-developed on the whole. The plot line has enough changes of direction to keep the readers' attention throughout and a satisfying conclusion means that the reader is not left feeling disappointed in the end. A very accomplished first novel, I would say!

This is a seriously good book that is all the more amazing for being the author's first. Although almost all the characters are to some degree stock items - the ex marine - the computer whizz - the insidious ,ruthless, mysterious assassin - the successful but rotten politician - the super fit ex CIA deadly beauty - the super efficient ex LAPD agent and more but all skilfully crafted into a thrilling morality tale . There is one solid thread about what happened to the missing teenage daughter of the politician? and this is set against the question of how far from the path of virtue will (a) man let his ambition take him ?. Many books of this ilk fall into the simplistic view that all American Politicians are corrupt scumbags whereas, although this one is, his duplicity is known to only a very few people. I did plump for five stars as I found it very compelling reading, but there were one or two loose ends that were not cleared up, which, after the tense main story ending my mind wandered off thinking what became of this or that person, who were very involved in the story throughout, then vanished without explanation.

I was looking through the book catalogue and found his second book listed and quite liked the look of it. Having this first book in my kindle library I thought I'd read it again as it was back in 2015 when I'd first read it. What a good choice that was as this is a really well written conspiracy thriller. Although the digital age has moved on since this was written it is still a cleverly mixed action thriller both in technical detail and action. This looks at the clandestine world where wealth and politics mix and to the lengths people will go to trying to hold on to power.

I found this novel a little confusing at the beginning and struggled to find the main focus of the book. However I’m so pleased that I persevered and continued to the finish. No spoilers here, I really enjoyed the way in which the key elements slowly came together and the various characters contribution to the story made total sense. Very well written and a pleasure to read.

This was recommended to me by Amazon and I am so pleased that it was. The story is complicated and very involving but the writer builds up the characters so that you get to understand them very well. There are enough twists and turns to keep any conspiracy theorist happy. The basic outline is of a girl who was 'kidnapped' a decade before and her Godmother has decided she wants more information about it, or so you think. Any more details would ruin the book and I would encourage you to read if you have any doubts about what some people will do to get power and keep it. There are enough loose ends for another book that I hope the Author is already considering. I will be looking forward to it.