She, or more correctly they in view of later revelations, wallows in words. Whole grab bags of them. Rocketing along without pause for punctuation.

Descriptions tumble forth, torrents of word after word. There is barely a pause for breath or, at times, even a humble comma. And certainly not a sentence-ending full point.

The style is very much in the blockbuster vein of crime/thriller writing which assails readers with mountains of facts to compensate for the absence of narrative substance.

It not enough simply to mention the villains have a weapon. To state that they are armed with gun, knife, crossbow, numchukka, spear, taser. grenade, or poisonous spray and so on.

Instead, the minutest details are deemed essential. Page after mind-numbing pages of them.

It is like reading a manufacturer’s manual. Thankfully it stops short of describing the weapon designer’s favourite breakfast food.

In general, twenty words seems to be the maximum sentence length preferred to ensure comprehension and clarity. It is a flexible figure and far from dogma set in stone.

Exceeding the suggested twenty words is acceptable . . . but sixty?? That is ridiculous excess.

As for ninety-eight . . . that is totally unacceptable. So many ideas and descriptions are crammed into a single sentence of this length that it demands to be read several times to be fully understood.

Where was the editor? After all, this is not some self-published and self-edited book, but one bearing the imprint of a mainstream publishing house.

Ninety-eight words in a single sentence make much of Argylle read like the script for a fast-moving action-packed chase movie rather than a carefully composed addition to the crime fiction genre.

Noticeably the previews quoted on the book’s cover tend to concentrate on its length (“an old fashioned blockbuster” from the Financial Times) action (“never lets up for a moment” according to the Daily Mail) and cinematic similarities (“brilliant set pieces worthy of a Bond film” says Choice magazine).

A trio of critiques that avoid any comments on its literary merits, or even its narrative appeal. It simply barrels along from one preposterous slice of action to another. Wham! Bam! K-pow! Boom! Next please.

It hurtles preposterously from one set piece to another as its cardboard cutout “heroes” travel the globe to find and retrieve a fabled Russian treasure being sought of an evil oligarch intent on using it to catastrophic ends.

Incredibly this bunch of stop-at-nothing renegades has been hand-picked by “the CIA’s most legendary spymaster”. And that’s the least of the fantasies propping up this succession of over the top set pieces.

The best of all is probably the brief note stating that author New Yorker Elly Conway wrote this, her first novel, “while working as a waitress in a late night diner”.

Which is a lovely conceit when it has since been revealed that it represents the combined talents of Australian novelist and screenwriter Terry Hayes and British writer of psychological thrillers, Tammy Cohen.

It was written at the behest of moviemaker Matthew Vaughn to accompany his film telling the story of spy novelist Elly Conway. A plot which surpasses that of the action-thriller at the centre of this maze.

Non-stop pace, endless action and characters beyond belief propel the tale at almost supersonic speed. There’s not a moment in which to take a breath or stop to consider its ridiculous nature.

It’s a doorstopper of a book readymade for long-haul travellers and insomniacs. And you can always skip those wordy sentences.

** Note: The movie Argyll is referred to in some reviews as a comedy.