Rich bad boy and his endangered empire

Have you ever heard about Largo Winch? His stories started with a few novels and graphic novels, but my first meeting with him was through a TV-Show. I’d love to watch it again, but it seems impossible to get it :/. There was a movie a few years ago, but somehow I missed it.

Anyway, I had these two books in my library for years and I finally decided to read them. I wanted to do that for a while now, but somehow always ended up with a different book in my hands.

Group W (Largo Winch #1) by Jean Van Hamme

The first volume of stories about Largo Winch – a millionaire who has to take over his father’s empire after living in peace for his whole life. At first glance, his not well suited for the role – messy hair, jeans, and a t-shirt instead of a suit and knives stuck in his shoes. But his father thought him well how to rule the company. And Largo thought himself well how to survive the hyenas that want to take over his money and his life.

Cyclope by (Largo Winch #2) by Jean Van Hamme

The second volume continues few months after the events from the first book. Largo has to deal with serious accusations and he’s not going to simply sit in a jail, waiting for some suited stiffs to get him out. He takes action in his own hands and figures out a better plan than his opponent – a drug-dealing organization ruled by a one-eyed woman.

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Were my expectations met? Well… I think I still prefer that TV-show. I guess I was just hoping for something different. Both of these stories have a great plot, the action scenes are exciting and thrilling and the characters are worth reading about. The problem is there are all these history info dumps and they were simply boring. First half of “Group W” book is pretty much a story about Largo’s father past and about the Group W and its companies

The first half of “Group W” book is pretty much a story about Largo’s father past and about the Group W and its companies. I was actually close to putting the book down for another few years, but luckily Largo finally showed up and saved the day.

It seems like there’s a lot of going on not only in the written story but also in backgrounds – mostly Largo’s plotting. Only after a certain point in the plot goes by we’re finding out what he planned and if it worked out. It’s actually rather well played since it allows you to stay excited and see how will he survive and get out of this tough situation.

I was kind of missing the Russian hacker that was in the TV-show, but there wouldn’t be a place for him in these stories.

From the good side, there were also Largo’s travels – I can sign in two more countries to my “book travel” list ;): Lichtenstein and Holland.

Overall I enjoyed these books, even though they had some slow moments.