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Lorenza Seldner

Too many stories... too much to digest

Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2018

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The Perimeter felt like a promise that never comes true. The author self-proclaims as an “unlike writer”, he is an engineer and that explains a lot.

The book follows Levi, an ex-Amish, now fixer through an implausible journey that covers several countries, the Russian Mob, his Amish roots in Pennsylvania, and a looming threat of a US nuclear holocaust… to name a few. There are also many dubious parts in which Levi suddenly “acquires” skills which abide him to solve impossible tasks and riddles in less than two minutes.

I wouldn’t be harsh on the author based on the above, after all, we do appreciate incredible stories, hence we love Mission Impossible, Game of Thrones, Star Trek… we love to be entertained; no matter how ludicrous the story sounds.

What bothered me the most was the writing itself. The book is filled with clichés. From the very first moment, the doctor tells Levi he has cancer the dialogue was 100% unoriginal. Another example, when Levi first sees his wife to deliver her the news “She looked as beautiful as the first day they met.” Then the dialogues seemed to jump from formal to informal with no coherence at all.
The ideas were there, but the lack of polishing, editing, and structure of the stories almost ruined it for me.

Annmarie

A very different character - Levi Yoder

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2018

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M.A. Rothman's thriller, Perimeter had some wonderful twists, technical background, and interesting characters. I did enjoy the book, especially the main character Levi Yoder. I liked Levi's semi-moralist outlook on life as a Mafia fixer. What left me somewhat frustrated were some areas of the storyline, that needed more development or smoother transitions. Two, such examples of under development, were the beginning and near the last moments with the second Katarina and Vladimir. The beginning of the story had a series of mini-events and characters that Levi experienced during his ten years of "walk about" after his wife's death. It felt as if the story was hopping around with few linkages. The second example, involving Katrina and Vladimir, resolved too quickly. It could use more complex sensory development. The technical description is wonderful and detailed. I would definitely read the next Levi Yoder thriller

SanjinTop Contributor: Cooking

Exciting and fun, with some really good surprises in it

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2018

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This book has some really great surprises that I don’t usually expect from thrillers and action based novels like this is. The main one for me is the main character, Levi, and choices that the author made with him. First of all, Levi has a great ‘profession’, he is a fixer, and that automatically invites the reader in and promises lots of exciting stuff and a potential for some great scenes. Also, maybe even more important, the author made Levi a deep character that I was actually emotionally invested in, and that is not the response I have with cool action heroes like Levi. The thing is that the author made Levi mortally ill, get well and at the same time put him through personal hell by taking away his wife. That made him human, vulnerable and made me care. The writing is on point, both for the more emotional stuff and the fast paced thriller scenes. Make no mistake, this still is a fun and action filled book with somewhat basic plot, with secret agencies, weapons, murders and all of that lovely stuff. I highlighted some of the character based things because that gives the book that extra kick above the many others, I believe.

Fast-pace and exciting thrill

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2018

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I have been watching "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan" recently and wanted to expand this offer to the books I read. After reading this book, I can tell now that M.A. Rothman truly deserves all the attention he has gotten. I am always on the search for what my next thriller is going to be. I was so happy I went for Perimeter. This action-packed story takes us to super entertaining and fast-paced action sequences as I have seen in few books.

You are captured from page 1 into the Levi Yoder, the hero of our story. Ok, I know that if you read the synopsis, you might roll your eyes when you read that this is "story of a man thrust back into a life he’d assumed was over." But trust me on this one, this is not your normal ex-CIA operatives going "The A-Team" story. This is a fascinating combo of advanced tech, smart plots, twists, and mind-blowing plot.

For one thing, you will find yourself not able to put the book down. Take it with you on tomorrow's flight and you will see how you will finish it before the plane lands! You are guaranteed a good dose of cutting-edge science, technology, thriller, and human nature. All in one great story; the story of Levi Yoder.

edwin archibong

Great story with a plot mixed with several intriguing elements

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2018

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If you’d like a mixture of intrigue, depth and drama, you can comfortably bet on M. Rothman’s Perimeter. In a plot woven with the power play between secret agencies, intelligence and counter-intelligence, historical artifacts, science, romance, humor and wisdom from the oriental ages, Rothman brings about an evenly-paced, conversational and likeable narrative.
Get introduced to the intricacy surrounding nuclear weapons, learn more about the martial arts, get exposed to other countries and cultures as main protagonist, Levi Yoder trudges across the Asian countries, and enjoy the interplay as several sub-plots come together to create a genial finale.
Great story. Great commitment by the author to etch out the finer details in the story. Great writing. And an enjoyable experience on a slow Saturday evening.

Charles Hanna

The Life You Thought Was Over...

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2018

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This novel of the literary intersection between international intrigue inherent to the spy thriller genre and personal crisis narrative about entry into the terrifying world of cancer is the masterpiece of novelist M.A. Rothman.

If you like the idea of coming out of retirement to do something risky, dangerous, and exciting (while also dealing with the physical and emotional fallout implied by terminal disease) then this book with throw some engaging challenges at you.

The mafia, the CIA, and medical crisis will blend together in one fast-paced exciting read that will have you continuing to turn the pages of Perimeter.

Top reviews from other countries

Mr. G. Lawrence

Wildly mixed ideas, at least one aspect poorly researched, sorry but not impressed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 13, 2020

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I’m a fan of great thrillers (the Jack Reacher books of course, and Gregg Hurwitz’s brilliant “Orphan X” series). I’m sorry but this isn’t one of them.

I appreciate that this book has many admirers and positive reviews on Amazon. Well, if you enjoy it, good luck to you. You might say it didn’t work for me. If you want it on the basis of other reviews, you’d better go ahead and buy it without reading the rest of this review. There are several spoilers up ahead. If you want to know why I would suggest an intelligent and discriminating reader should avoid it, I think I should explain why.

While reading it I felt like I was stuck watching one of those 70s TV movies, where you keep watching because you want to know what happens, and it’s dragging you along wasting your life going on and on with its not very successful attempts at humour and its naïve characterisation, and you know you just don’t care about it really.

This book calls for the most suspension of disbelief I’ve ever been asked for as a reader, ever, in decades of reading. The hero grew up as an Amish farmer (yes, without electricity and technology, but with plenty of highly moral and religious surroundings) – then becomes a Mafia fixer, while supposedly being one of the good guys we have to sympathise with – at least before he straps a guy to a chair, tortures him, and then, on finding out he was responsible for the death of his wife, beats this bound man to death. (I realize we’re talking about the death of his wife, but there are ways of dealing with a desire for vengeance, and this is not one of the “good” ones.) He is also, as a kind of incidental throw-away bit of side plot, cured of cancer by ancient Egyptian mysticism and given healing powers worthy of Wolverine. And he is of course irresistible to women. Meanwhile, his mafia contacts seem as cosy as sitcom hoodlums, rather than being real-world nasty psychopaths and bitter damaged threatening humans, they’re all reasonable and friendly and full of “honour”.

He has unbelievably improbable hi-tech useful contacts (such as the loveable New York Jewish grandmother who happens to be a whiz at weaponry on the quiet, like the tailor in the original Man from UNCLE who had all that secret-agent stuff behind a hidden doorway). He acquires facility with various languages and becomes an unbeatable martial artist. He attracts the attention of the Russian mobs and the CIA, who happen to be looking for missing nuclear weapons (and of course, he finds one and disarms it just before the timer runs out, have we seen this before or what?)

In a return to the Egyptian-mysticism thing - which seems to belong in a different book apart from its usefulness in giving our “hero” many of the attributes of competence of that satire on 60s superspies in the absurd character of Derek Flint, played by James Coburn – he encounters a Tibetan monk who is really an immortal ancient Egyptian (!). He is then tucked away somewhere, perhaps for use in a future book. It does lead our hero to realize he also has pretty faultless vision, hearing and memory, as if he weren’t enough to cope with already. I find all this a bit laughable, to be honest, and that comment is coming from a lifelong fan of Superman and Batman. I might have loved it when I was fifteen years old, maybe. To a more mature reader, it is a bit desperate in concept and realisation. The unfocused story is a bit all over the place, and some things are drawn out when they should have been dealt with more briefly so you could get on with a story.

The writing itself isn’t bad, but the mishmash of ideas I find just terrible. Where it finally got unforgiveable for me was a scene with a girl who watches him perform “a complex kata involving a spinning kick… and deep sweeping lunges.” She then says “Was that Wing Chun?” and he says “Wow, I’m impressed.” No, no, no. If you’re going to write about martial arts, and you haven’t actually practised that system, it is absolutely unforgiveable in the age of Google not to do a tiny bit of basic research. I won’t make a big deal out of the word “kata”, although that originally related only to Japanese and Okinawan arts, and Wing Chun is Chinese, where the English word used for such movement patterns is “form” or “set” – the word “kata” is, I suppose, in the process of cultural cross-over here and there. But the point is that there are no spinning kicks or deep sweeping lunges in Wing Chun. None. All you have to do to find that out is watch some Wing Chun on Youtube, or glance through a book on Wing Chun in a bookstore, or watch Donnie Yen in the “Ip Man” movie. That is not years of onerous research, it’s a minimum requirement. So this really isn’t good enough.

Still, at least the guy has written a thriller and pleased a certain audience with it, which is more than I’ve ever managed to do.

Dan T

Outstanding thriller book - a must read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 23, 2020

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I picked up this book while looking for new books in the thrillerverse arena that I enjoy allot and saw this via Amazon, i typically pick up samples first to see if I would like the book overall and within a few pages of the sample,, I simply had to buy it.

Simply an excellent read from start to finish. The primary character is something that I have not seen brought out in any other series. Levi Yoder is a really great action hero, lots of skills and lots of action.

Hope you also enjoy this book. I found it really hard to stop reading it once I started.

Lauren Cinderey

So much more than a James Bond type story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 9, 2018

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M.A Rothman has written an amazing fast-paced novel. The storyline starts with the main character Levi facing death. He’s accepted it, he’s ready for it and then…… it doesn’t happen. Levi is the receiver of a complete miracle, and now he doesn’t know what to do. One minute he’s finished and ready to die and the next he has to start his life again. Now his wife is dead, his expertise is needed by the CIA, and the answers he seeks, happen to lie with someone who is no longer breathing. This book is much more than your average “hero agent” type story. I hope that there will be more tales from Levi Yoder.

Peter Rambaut

A different super hero!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2020

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I really enjoyed this thriller and read it almost in one sitting. The hero is a new and unusual 'super-hero' and can't wait to read the other two. Although I found the ending a bit rushed it did not matter because the journey along the way was magical. Here was a super hero who had been formed relatively late in life and differently from the usual SAS, Navy seal, and other elite military forces but the main appeal for me was Yoder's empathy and compassion for people in general. It was also good to read a story where the heros best friends did not get killed or tortured because of his actions. More power to your laptop Mike Rothman !

Roger

A good read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2019

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IMO this was a very interesting read, from an author new to me. Well constructed, intricate characters, and an absorbing story.
I want to read more by M A Rothman !

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