Thursday, June 14, 2012

Tea and Read: False Witness by Randy Singer


Title: False Witness
Author: Randy Singer
Rating: One cup of tea

I became a fan of Randy Singer’s books a few years ago when I read By Reason of Insanity. I loved the premise of that book and enjoyed how the plot developed. I expected the same with False Witness. Unfortunately, False Witness didn’t hold my attention as well as By Reason of Insanity. False Witness wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t as good in my opinion.

Singer has a way of creating compelling characters. David Hoffman is a likable anti-hero and despite his behaviors, I found myself rooting for him. The rest of the cast of characters, especially lawyers Jamie Brock and Isaiah Haywood also kept me engaged. I also enjoyed the way Singer weaved faith into the book. I like the subtlety in which he presented the themes of faith in this book.

As for the plot, I loved the idea of the secret code, but I must admit, the math turned me off a bit since I’m horrible at math. I felt like it was important that I understood what the algorithm did, that it was important to the plot, and that I missed a part of the impact of the book because I didn’t understand it (my brain shut down when I got to the sections about how the algorithm worked). I do think that someone with a math/technology mind would probably enjoy that section, but since I’m a primarily a pleasure reading, that part seemed a bit like school for me.

The pacing was hard to get into. Again, not horrible, but a little slow for me. I guess I expected for it to be much faster since this book was a thriller. I found myself tempted to skim sections, but my interest in the characters kept me reading. The switch between David Hoffman’s POV and the lawyers POV was a bit jarring.

All in all, not a bad book, especially for readers who like a slower paced book. 

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