Read: Hitler's Peace, by Philip Kerr
Why: looked good, from penguin
Worse writing than The K*** R***er
Takeaway: Wow, was this badly written. You know a book is going to be lazy and sloppy when the first sentence contains the phrase "ornate-looking couch." "Ornate" is a vague crutch-word that's in fashion right now for some reason -- I know because I see it in most of the copy I get from 23-year-olds -- and "-looking" makes the phrase a tautology. (It's like the phrase "red-colored" -- what is red going to do besides color something? Can something be "red-shaped"? The thing can just be "red.") And then the first exchange in the book (between the young protagonist and FDR, naturally) involves an abstruse philosophical dialogue conducted in a single voice, putting dry academic language in FDR's mouth that history tells us he wouldn't even understand. I got to page 35 and decided to mail this piece of junk back to Penguin.