Review of The Spectral Island

[Itz Savaga]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Spectral Island" by Stephen de Burges.]

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3 out of 5 stars

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The Spectral Island by Stephen de Burges is a mystery story. The Island of Ivundé in Ziaŵala was peaceful and cheerful like most islands, but that changed when reports came to the British and US special forces that some Middle Eastern men were illegally accessing gold deposits in an abandoned school site on the island. They needed to be sure of what they were up against, so they had to send a trusted person to check the lay of the land and bring back reports. Dr. Christopher Jamieson, a scientist and academic consultant, was recommended for the job by the Director, James Burnett.

Dr. Christopher Jamieson was contacted during the Christmas holiday for this job. He took it up and soon was bound for Ivundé Island. In the course of his job, he found that there was more to the school building site than just gold deposits. The Middle Eastern men were holding a Chinese scientist hostage there with a lot of machines and other things that are laboratory related. Dr. Christopher, alongside Emmeline Freemont, who was working with the British Intelligence Agency, now had it upon themselves to uncover what was going on on the abandoned site. Their job was going well till the whole island was taken over by religious extremists, but this was all a cover by the Middle Eastern men to shift attention from their real sinister purpose. Find out their real purpose and if the plan to conceal it worked out.

I like the makeup of this story. From the build-up of the characters to the description of events and the way the story was written in general, it's no doubt that the story went through a commendable making process. There was also no addition of unnecessary characters. Every character contributed either in a major or minor way to the makeup of the story. The plot was original as well. It was not some cliché storyline that had been seen before in many other books.

The author included French words in the dialogues, especially between Madame and a few others on the island, and he did not care to add the meanings of those words, not even as footnotes; this would be difficult for non-French speaking readers who may love to read this book. Also, some parts of the dialogue in this story seemed overstretched. It could take the attention of the readers off the main point of the conversation. The climax was not what I expected from such an interesting storyline. It was not such a bad climax, but I felt more could have been done with this story. It was not as thrilling and suspenseful as I had imagined it would be. There was also the issue of technicality, especially as regards the lack of proper explanation for terms relating to the special forces used in some conversations.

I give this book a rating of 3 out of 5 stars. It was an interesting read; however, I deducted two stars due to the unexplained French words, the overstretched dialogues, the unsatisfactory climax, and the slight technicality occasioned by words relating to the special forces that could have been better explained. I found no errors in this book, so I believe it was exceptionally well edited.

I recommend The Spectral Island by Stephen de Burges to readers who love mystery and adventure stories. It contained a lot of those, and that demographic of readers would have a great time with it.

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The Spectral Island
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[Amy Luman]

The mystery and adventure portions of this story do appeal to me. However, I am not French and do not speak the language, so it may not be worth it to me.

[Shedrack A]

I wonder what the real plans of the Middle Eastern men were. Thanks for a great review!

[NetMassimo]

This seems like a novel with great potential that needs some more editing to fix some problems. Thank you for your honest review!