This is my 3rd book by Crouch and by far my least favorite. There were some things in his more recent works that gave me strong "this is too obviously written by a man" vibes, so I went into this with that in the back of my mind, and it's clear that those observations in the newer works held stronger roots in his older material. The trope of "FMC pushed aside for MMC to shine" in Dark Matter and Recursion is actually an improvement from the misogyny in this work. All of the women in this book are in some form of subservience or another-- they work at the front desk of the hotel, they're a waitress, they're receptionists. They're "cute, though a little on the heavy side" or they "had probably been a stone-cold knockout in her twenties, although thirty-four or thirty-five-- whatever she was now-- didn't seem to be treating her too badly." 35?? The horror! (But don't worry, he has just a "shallow layer of fat on top of Ethan's well-defined abs".) And he is such a total asshole to all women. He does a very brusque "I'm an important man, do what I want or I'll get you fired" routine with every single one of them. And the wife that we don't know anything about except how much he loves her? I think we're just supposed to disregard that he cheated on her. Being the main character is not enough to make me root for you, and Ethan Burke really proves that.
Beyond the icky misogyny, the writing was fine and I'll admit it was a very fast read that kept me hooked. I don't really understand why it's a series, so I won't be reading any others. I don't think it's a bad book, but it's definitely not for me.