The Cauldron (Colin Forbes, 1997)

For the second time this year I've abandoned a book after getting 100 pages in. While Taltos was uninvolving and lacking in incident, Coline Forbes' The Cauldron was fairly action packed and had a story that almost made me keep going. What made me give up was the barely believable characters and the appallingly over-written dialogue and action. It was like reading something that has been badly mistranslated from a different language. Plot developments were signposted several times in advance, to the shock of the characters - who were supposed to be a crack squad of spies but were puzzled as to why lead agent Paula Grey could find a female washed up in California and then an identical woman 2 weeks later dies in the sea in Cornwall. 100 pages it takes before they realise they've got twins on their hands! And this is a crack team!

I just couldn't take the wooden dialogue, poorly thought out characters and general bad writing anymore and gave up - this was all distracting me from the plot, which was actually quite intriguing. I'm surprised by the blurb about the author that says he earns his living solely from writing and this is his twenty-third novel, in 1997. I dread to think how many he's churned out since then. I will not be seeking out Colin Forbes in future.