Demille is a good writer and a lousy story teller. This is the first book of his I read. I was looking forward to reading more. But not now. He is in serious need of an editor. Reminds me of Weber.The first 200 pages are a decent read with a solid B. Then the author goes completely off track. In a major way. He loses the story line, seems to forget how to convey a story and has the reader reading about meetings and conferences and just garbage.This stuff doesn't help character development, it doesn't help the story and is exceedingly boring.I give an F.From page 200 to 700 is full of this. Then finaly around page 700 he decides to finish the book and the next 200 is a decent B read.A good editor would have cut out 200-700 and had a real decent B book. Instead, the writer gives an impression of someone who needs to do a lot more work on his craft because he isn't up to grade level.He writes like a journalist and not a story teller.