Passport to Peril

Passport To Peril by Robert B. Parker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

John Stodder, an American reporter, goes to Hungary with a forged passport to look for his brother who disappeared after a bombing run in WWII. Only the passport Stodder received wasn't forged. It was that of a murdered man. And Stodder just happens to run into the murdered man's secretary on the Orient Express. In her possession is a mysterious Manila envelope that belonged to the dead man. Stodder's trip to Hungary to look for his brother goes way off course as both the Russians and the Germans want to take the envelope from him, one way or another...

First off, this isn't a bad book. There is a fair amount of suspense and enough twists to keep it going. So why didn't I like it? It's not much like the other Hard Case novels. It's more like a spy novel than anything else. Not my cup of tea. There were other things that bothered me. Stodder and Maria fall in love a little too fast. All of the non-American characters are one dimensional villains. Most of all, I didn't really care what happened.

This one is definitely going on the Meh pile as far as the Hard Case Crime series goes. I could see giving it a three if I'd been in the mood for something like this.

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