Review: The Truth Factory

The Truth Factory by Cody McFadyen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Preordered this as soon as I realized the author is still alive and will publish a new book, which is just a few years late after it was first announced. Word was that he was seriously ill and I expected no more books from him, instead I prepared myself for his death notice.
Not knowing what really happened (it may simply be an extreme case of writers block), I am glad he can write on and hope he is not ill anymore.
Sorry to say so, but this book is as bad as it gets. Just having skimmed a few reviews, some people question who wrote the book, given how far (60%) I got, I still think, it is written by Mr. McFadyen - people change, although I think, this smells of writers block, but that is just a guess.

This drags, it is now quite a few years (5 I think) since I read my last book by Cody McFadyen (sidestory, I bought into this author first, as I thought he was a female, but sadly, I was wrong). That last book was Der Menschenmacher which was first published in German - my first language, so I read it in German, and after reading it with its philosophical theme of Nietzsche I understand why. But that was still suspenseful and brutal.

This book drags, beginning shortly after an over the top brutal and fast paced beginning with a lot of dead.
It consists of inner musings of the MC, and scenes of torture, some from history (reminding me of The Devil of Nanking aka Tokyo). Also an unexpected betrayal which is then so far (61%) not further investigated.
The deaths, torture etc. get personal, but the suspense does not come back.
Taking a break I read other books at the 61% mark and am not very keen on going back to this book.
My rule is, I do not abandon a book after a third (33,3%). Currently I cannot bring myself to read further and whatever happens, even if it picks up, I think, both I and the author have changed too much, so I might drop this author, even if and when I finish the book.

The vision of the author might be to take a major turn in this series and begin a (short?) series consisting of the investigation to bring this sect-like circle of people down - I cannot see it finished in the remaining space of the book. That might be interesting, even for me, but I do not feel it.

Maybe something totally different happens and this might be the last book in this series, I will only know once I finish, but as I do not want to spoil it, just take this: so far I think, this is not recommended, and only hardcore fans of Cody McFadyen and those ADD people who read all from certain authors regardless how bad it is, should read it.

Even if some books by my favorite authors dragged in the middle, this one is too long and too far out, even though I had an advanced course in Philosophy during my last school years and have still some interest in it.

So far I would rate it 2 meager stars. And as always my review is longer than usual with this rating.
Well. Read at your own peril.
After a few days and a few books in between, I am not too sure, I will finish it. Life is too short for bad books!

August 21st, 2017, nearly a year since I last looked into the book.
In trying to clean up my 50 (e)books strong "Currently Reading"-shelf, which mostly consists of started-bored-me-on-to-the-next-book, I will try to get 5-10 books either as definite DNF or FF. This one is currently FF (Fast-Forward, like on a VHS-Videoplayer, if you are old enough remember them ... ah, well, kidding, FF does exist on Netflix / Amazon Prime and 4K Blu-ray whatever).

YES! Finished it, finally. Might peek into the next books, to see how it end, but not if they are as expensive as I expect, and if they take as long to be published - I have lost my drive to read the worst of the worst with this book, and most books I are not as boring. While I can recognize this over-the-top dark book, it offers no suspense and I do not like the torture offered by it.

Strongly discourage picking this up, even for free or lent. The second star is for fans of the series, those who need even the bad books by an author to complete their collection. For someone in the search for really bad ideas this might be a brilliant book, but then again, there are better examples in older literature, the Classic de Sade's 120 days of Sodom comes to mind. And even that I have only read parts, not everything. The sheer encompassing timeline and the story are strong, but the storytelling not, it reads like non-fiction-lecture-book, lots of inner monologue little action and so it bored me. Even then there are lots of parts (family scenes) which should have been cut for getting a shorter book. And Callie's way of speaking with her constantly using "Honey-love" grated on my nerves. Could have been that way in the books before in the series, but they where shorter (I think) and had stronger stories, more crime, more suspense, so even then I could skipp that in those books, or it was not present.

View all my reviews