Customer Reviews

Acts Of Honor

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Although the plot was very clever and the book well-written, some parts of the book were unbelievable, especially the secret facility housing the government's throw-aways. (I think it may be because I don't want to believe such a building exists in our country.) In addition, the romantic relationship between Dr. Sara West and "Joe" was frivalous; the book may have been better without it.

As someone who seriously dislikes suspense (military or not), I picked up this book one evening for "light" reading to get to sleep, assuming I'd be easily able to put it down. WRONG!! I read the last page at 4 a.m.! Ms. Hinze delivers a powerful book with compelling characters. Being ex-military myself, I had no problem at all with the premise, right down to the typically arrogant military mindset that has them sending the heroine in pretending to be a Captain without the slightest coaching on what a military officer should know as a matter of course. I couldn't help feeling that it made the story all the more believable! Ms. Hinze had me hanging right til the last minute. I really-truly-honest-to-gosh could NOT decide if the man who sent her in was wearing a white hat or a black hat, til the very end, and I was HANGING off the edge of the seat to find out (literally... at 3 a.m. my roommate complained about the light, and I went into the bathroom and spent the last hour finishing the book sitting on the edge of the tub!). I haven't found this kind of page-turner for years and years... Thank you, Vicki Hinze! I'm run-not-walking to get Shades of Gray and Duplicity!

Dr. Sara West is working undercover for the military. She is a civilian pretending to be a Captain who is also a doctor. She is working in a secret military hospital with 5 post traumatic stress syndrome patients. She needs to save them or they and her will be terminated. She finds herself falling in love with one of her patients. She hopes to get thru to him but it's hard when he attacks her for wearing white. Why is he afraid of white? And why do all the patients repeat the phrase "I wept"? Not knowing who to trust Dr. Sara is fighting for her life and the lifes of others who have worked to keep our country safe. If you like this book please read Shades of Gray and Duplicity. Both great novels.

"Meticulous plotting, enough suspense to keep the reader guessing, and fast pacing make Acts of Honor top-notch."

Excerpt reprinted from The Bookdragon Review.

Acts of Honor has a great premise, but lacks the bite and tension of a really good suspense novel. Dr. Sara West, civilian psychiatrist, is drawn into an Air Force mystery, when she is sent to a secret mental facility to try to help five Air Force intelligence officers who have totally lost their minds. During her very short tenure at the hospital...less than two weeks, she falls madly in love and cures one patient, solves the mystery of what happened to these men and uses herself as bait to catch the bad guys. This is all a little over the top and more than a bit unbelievable. Ms Hinze could have left out the love affair, as it added nothing to the story line and seemed ridiculous. The story needed to be tighter; it tended to get bogged down on silly details at times. And, the climax and ending were very weak and unexciting. This is a book that needed a better editor. Not the best I've read...but not an altogether bad book either.

Acts of Honor deserves a place above most mystery thrillers. Whereas it contains all the excellent action and suspense expected in the genre, it also carries a deeper message. For example an unorthadox type of romance develops out of a potentially volatile situation. However, Ms. Hinze is able to handle the situation with delicacy and turn what seems to be an unacceptable situation into a desirable one. She shows both the heroine and her male lead in their most noble lights. It is a true delight to read and, while leaving the reader with a sense of satisfaction at the end, the novel also generates some serious thinking about right and wrong. Upon finishing it, I felt not only entertained, but educated.

I found this to be an excellent book. I was attracted to it because it dealt with military men and women who day in and day out put their lives on the line for us, often with little recognition of that fact. As well, I was intrigued to see how the author's philosophy regarding this, together with her knowledge of the military, her knowledge of psychology, and her writing talent would all come together in this book. Although this is not one of my pet genres, I was quickly caught up with the characters and the twists and turns of the story. I found the plot complexities to be a real joy. So much so that I read a large chunk the final evening, turning pages till 3 a.m., because I didn't want to wait one more day to discover how the story would end. I look forward to reading more of Vicky Hinze's works.

If you've never read a military suspense, this is the book to cut your teeth on. Vicki Hinze grabs you by the throat, pulls you in with believable characters, amazing plot twists, and leaves you feeling good about the men and woman who fight not only for our country but for what they believe in. Ms. Hinze has a way with description that places you in the middle of the action, that leaves you no option but to go on a journey with her characters. You find yourself asking "Could this really happen?" To top it all off she adds the growing romance that shows the power of love that leaves you feeling good inside. What more can a reader ask for? Nothing!

What a truly wonderful, unique, and gripping story! Thank you, Vicki, for pouring out your heart and soul for all of us in this magnificent book. Talk about a page-turner.... No one does it better than Vicki Hinze! As for the really poor review I see on this review page? That person must have been having a really, really bad day... This book is wonderful!

ACTS OF HONOR is a book that touches the heart, the soul, afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. Ms. Hinze's mastery of the English language adds depth to this complex story, and her characters are so real they crawled off the page and into my heart. Brava! Encore!