By Robert Larson

I’ve figured out Red One’s schtick. Imagine a hard-core pornographic film that had no sex in it: some initiating dialogue, a premise, but ultimately no payoff. That’s basically this book. It works at a literal level, because Vera keeps talking about sex but never actually having any (though we’re treated to a porno fluffer sequence that ranks up there with the most pointless moments in all of print media); it also works because we keep having this conflict between her and the Carpenter teased, but now the arc is over, and we wait another year for it to be finished. All promise and no payoff.