Review: Cruelty - Scott Bergstrom

 

 

 

Review: The Cruelty - Book #1 The Cruelty - Scott Bergstrom - February 2017

Coming to the US on the plane, I figured it would be a long ride, so I brought some of my books from home to read on the plane. Books that I had for a while and just kept meaning to read. The Cruelty - An Assassin took a different turn to what I had expected before starting the book. I thought that the story would be about a teen who was an assassin. What happened though has we met 17 yr old Gwendolyn aka Gwen Bloom whose father works in the diplomat's office. They move every couple of years and are currently stationed in New York. Ten years ago, we learn that Gwen's mother was killed in a riot and today is the tenth anniversary. What happens from here is that Gwen gets suspended from school and then her father leaves for another trip. She is used to these trips as he always comes back home, but something goes wrong this trip, and her father is missing. Now Gwen is about to discover the truth of who her father was and that he is now being branded a US Terrorist working for the Russians. Gwen knows her father would never betray their country and leave her on purpose and so with the help of her new friends and next-door neighbors and a copy of 1984 by George Orwell. Gwen will leave the country and start a mission to track down her father and the ones who took them and get to the bottom of who is, in fact, responsible for this mayhem and framing her father.  I have to admit; the book was a tad slow for my liking and in places seemed to drag on. Though this is the start of a trilogy, it won't be one I would be carrying on with. The one thing I did like though is that this book can be read as a stand-alone as it concludes rather than hang on a cliffhanger.