It could've been so much more

** spoiler alert ** When I first read the blurb for Christopher Farnsworth's Kill File, I was excited and couldn't wait to read it. The premise was interesting! An ex-CIA agent who can read and manipulate minds and uses this talent in his capacity as a freelance 'fixer'. A nice touch is that the use of said talent is not without consequences either. And the first chapter was everything the blurb promised it would be. It was thrilling, creative, tense and the action was well written, and even though the name John Smith seemed unoriginal, it didn't bother me overly much. I wanted to read more and find out what happened next.

Well, what happened next was a major letdown and disappointment.

After the very promising first chapter the book drags us through a full chapter seemingly dedicated to explaining what data mining is. Sure, data mining is an important bit of the plot later on, but the explanation, delivered by Sloan, one of the book's characters, is mind numbingly boring. Not to mention that the way Sloan explains it is borderline insulting. Sloan is extremely intelligent and he is annoyed that people less smart than he is never can keep up with his intellect and he always has to explain everything. You know, the way the author is now explaining data mining to the vastly less intelligent reader.

After this thinly veiled infodump we're being introduced to Kelsey. Kelsey is the mandatory hot Bond girl. In her twenties and a total babe. Something that the author wastes no opportunity to remind us of. He keeps mentioning it. Every man is jealous when she approaches John. Every man they meet can't help but think about her tits and how they're going to fuck her. And even though we're being told every other chapter that she's very special (apparently the only other people John Smith meets are vapid and prone to panicking), her looks are basically the only contribution to the story. Well, her looks and the classic damsel in distress syndrome.

Then we get the mandatory sob childhood stories. John remembers things from when he was nine months old. His biological parents left him before he could properly form memories, but he does remember their auras and there was no love involved. He was also very poor and bullied, even though (or maybe because) he is highly intelligent.

None of the social workers on his case give a damn about the kids in their care and every foster family is happy to see the back of him. Basically, everybody in the world is an asshole and everything sucks. Possibly this was meant to make the reader feel for John, but any sympathy I had for him was quickly evaporated when he went on to tell us that he used his talent as a teen to get the girls, who "couldn't see through my cheap tricks".

There is a lot of condescending explaining, from a "people are so dumb" explanation about how a cell phone addiction works, to feeling the need to explain who Stalin is in order to explain who Wolf Messing is. So. Much. Explaining.

This book had so much potential, but it's buried underneath a pile of misogyny and unnecessary backstory. The flashbacks and infodumps slow the story down to a mindnumbingly boring crawl.

There is no character growth and everyone is annoyingly one-dimensional. John Smith is still condescending and arrogant, I skipped his last two background chapters because I simply did not care. Preston is still the bad guy who loves being evil. Kelsey is still the pretty girl whose only job is to look pretty, not scream and fall in love with John.

And it's such a shame! The chapters where John is using his powers, where the story is moving forwards instead of going back or standing still, are well written and fun! This could have been a book where I could have forgiven the flat characters and blatant sexism. But as it is, I've never been so happy to have finished a book just so I could stop reading it.