Title: Eagle: Birds of Flight – Book Three
Author: J.M. Erickson
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 978-1478708049
Pages: 284, Paperback/Kindle
Genre: Thriller
Reviewed by: Russell D. James, Pacific Book Review
Book Review
Eagle: Birds of Flight is a political slash spy slash everyday thriller of sorts that continues a story from two previous volumes. Although it is difficult to piece together the important facts from the previous two books, the story flows nicely and intrigue seems to be around the corner, sometimes even surprising an avid suspense thriller like this author. Anyone who likes wannabe gangster hitmen spy types will like this book. Anyone who has ever fantasized about making easy money will sympathize with the main character.
Dialog is the name of the game in this book, seconded only by the immense amount of introspection. Although it is difficult sometimes to know when the narrator is going back and forth in time, once the author’s writing style is discovered by the reader, the book flows and the story reads like a television movie. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this book and its prequels (and the upcoming sequel) will be made into one or two movies for television.
There are issues with the book, however. It is clear that a professional editor never touched the manuscript while in production. Punctuation is missing, incorrect punctuation is seen throughout the book, the author has pronoun envy especially in regard to dialog, the adverb “that” is missing at least a hundred times (and with an East coast character, nonetheless), there are subject-verb disagreements, sometimes a past tense thought ends with present tense phrasing, some paragraphs are broken when they should not be, and other paragraphs that should be broken are kept together. Although the misspellings were few, careful proofreading will improve the manuscript immensely. Hopefully, this can be done before final production.
But apart from the ramblings of this grammar nerd, the story is first rate, the characters are developed professionally, the plots are clear and hold true throughout the book, and the settings for the scenes are spot on in regard to the little things.
Once the book is finished, I know every reader will go out and purchase the first two volumes in the series and will act like a spoiled school child and jump up and down daily in anticipation of the last and final volume in the series, which we all hope comes out sooner rather than later.
