Agents of Change by Guy Harrison

Synopsis:

An amiable corporate manage by day and a matchmaker whenever he can get around to it, Calvin Newsome's new dream job falls into his lap when he's recruited by a secret worldwide organization whose agents use uncanny abilities to empower and influence everyday downtrodden individuals. Disaster striker, however, when an elaborate scheme leaves Calvin as a prime murder suspect... and his new employer is presumably to blame. 

With the authorities on his heels and his life left in ruin, Calvin uses his new powers to blend in until a journey for freedom becomes a quest for peace. As the agency's rival organization threatens the security of all the earth's inhabitants, he teams up with unlikely allies and battles surprising enemies hellbent on unleashing their power in a twisted version of justice, innocent lives be damned. 

Review:

For me I felt like this book started off a little bit on the slower side of things, which is one of my pet peeves in books, but there was one thing about this book that I think helped with this. The author has a pretty good sense of humor in the beginning of the book, so even though it starts off a little bit on the slow side the humor within the beginning helps distract you from the slower pace. And I always like a little bit of humor in my books, so that was kind of nice for me. 

I think that the idea behind the organization that Calvin is recruited by will appeal to a lot of people, and they will find it interesting. The Agency basically does things to help people who are going through hard times in their life, which kind of feels a little like Pay it Forward to me. But in the times that we are, with a lot of people going through hard times, I can see how the idea of an Agency like this existing could be appealing to people. 

While there are a lot of concepts in the book that I think are interesting I am not sure there was enough done with them to make them truly work within the book itself. I think the first problem I had with the book was the powers you get from being a part of the Agency. I felt like the powers could have been interesting if they made more sense within the context of the Agency, but the powers often had a way of overshadowing everything else, and the backstory behind them in connection with the Agency wasn't really strong enough to support it. 

I felt like there were also a lot of problems with the secondary characters. I don't think any of the characters beside Calvin were designed to be likable. This was a problem for me mainly because I don't think one character can really carry a book on their own, the readers has to enjoy at least a few of them. When you don't, at least for me, it starts to interfere with the pacing of the book and become less enjoyable of a reader. This really didn't start to become a problem for me until about half way through the book. 

There is a lot of action in this book, so if you are a person who really like action in their books then this could be a book for you. For me though I really wanted there to be more to the book than there really was. I felt like I needed more character development in order for me to become really invested in them as characters and in the plot. I think the bones of the book could be really good they just needed more work before going to press. I think if you like a lot of action then you might enjoy this book, it does have some interesting concepts.