Reviews

Traitor by John Peel

garnetofeden's review

3.0

As I said in my review of the previous book, Inspector Shimoda doesn't strike me as the sharpest tool in the box. Her only redeeming quality is her suspicious nature. Even then she's not always as suspicious as she should be, and she sometimes unreasonably dismisses things without further investigation.

1)

Spoiler

She doesn't even entertain the notion that Tristan could be telling the truth even though she knows that clones have been made. Later it's explained that she thought Tristan wasn't famous enough, but how would he have known about the president's clone in order to "use" that information?

2) What happened to trial by jury? In the previous book, Mora and her family are sentenced to the Underworld by the same judge who sentences Tristan.

Spoiler

However, when Inspector Shimoda calls her boss she only mentions Tristan's case and not Mora and her parents

. What reason do they have to suspect that Truzac might not work on them? Is that any reason why it shouldn't have at least been given for record purposes? I realize that it's not the United States anymore, but it still seemed suspicious. This is where the dystopian element starts to come in. The judge seems to have total authoritarian power, and there's no justice for the Underworlders.

Mora is a little unreasonable, but as Tristan said at the end, her mind has gone a little weird.

Plot hole:

Spoiler

Chen said that Inspector Shimoda was the only one good enough with computers to potentially stop Tristan. Then her new boss agrees she's no computer whiz. What?

Rating reviewed 1/28/2023.