Three Cheers for the Glad Game!

The Prometheus Deception
Robert Ludlum
St. Martins Press

While it is not my normal practice to use this blog as a forum for complaint (it is, after all, a book review site), let me just say that this last year has been pretty hard on me. My dad got sick, I had a terrible car accident, I was homeless for a couple of months, one of my dearest friends passed away unexpectedly, my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer, and my dad has gotten sicker and won't be getting better. If you add the everyday crap to the pile (the occasional bad work days, the on again/off again relationship with my best friend and my growing hate for the 401 around Milton) I should be laid out on a couch somewhere undergoing intensive bouts of psychotherapy. But I'm not. And why is that, you ask? It's because I've found my inner Pollyanna and I'm constantly playing the Glad Game.

Take, for example, the subject of this week's post. I started to "read" the Prometheus Deception with my dad when we went for a drive to distract him from the pain. He's to the point in his illness where he can no longer comfortably read a conventional novel, so I picked up an audio book to see if that would do the trick. It did and he has spent lots of happy hours listening to one of his favourite authors. The fact that I became so engaged in this particular story was an added bonus -- see how this Glad Game works?

Now, about the novel ... Nick Bryson is a retired spook who had spent his entire adult life working for an ultra-clandestine organization called the "Directorate". After a significant period of adjustment, he has finally settled into his new life as a university history professor when he is suddenly pulled back into the game. Someone is trying to establish a global, supra-governmental organization that would threaten the privacy and security of civilization as we know it. It is up to Nick to track the shadowy leaders and bring them down. This novel was choc-a-bloc full of dangerous exploits, exotic locales, beautiful women and terrifying men. I was addicted to the story and could hardly wait for Nick to figure it all out. 2.5 action heroes out of 5.