SECOND SIGHT: A PAUL CHRISTOPHER NOVEL by Charles McCarry is a well-written novel. And that kept me reading it long after I otherwise would have given up. McCarry seems to be, in SECOND SIGHT, at least, a great writer but not a good storyteller. This is because it takes so long for anything to happen. At page 122 I almost stopped reading. I almost stopped again at page 145.

But some readers who have read SECOND SIGHT have given this book high marks. That’s because this is the seventh in a series, and they read it in order; I started with this one. A couple of reviews even stated that, to appreciate SECOND SIGHT, you have to read the other six novels in the series first. So I kept reading.

Unfortunately, SECOND SIGHT goes here and there, back and forth; no story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. This book is mostly well-written background material. As one reviewer back in 2008 said, it reads like a series of deleted scenes from the first six books.