I have read a lot of Karin Slaughter novels. More than a dozen, I'm sure. But a few years ago I quit the Will Trent series. I skipped the last two novI have read a lot of Karin Slaughter novels. More than a dozen, I'm sure. But a few years ago I quit the Will Trent series. I skipped the last two novels. But I picked this one up because it had a kind of Agatha Christie vibe, not Slaughter's usual approach, and I was curious. Of course this is Karin Slaughter so it is not just a simple whodunnit. As one character notes, this story is Agatha Christie by way of V.C. Andrews.
You know by now that there are always like 50 content warnings for her novels. I thought maybe this one would be different when halfway through we only had a handful, but don't worry there were plenty by the end!
But this is a different one for her and it was enjoyable enough that I didn't regret coming back to the series. Even though I have to wonder how old Sara Linton is now. (We have 20+ years of Sara Linton novels, of course, but I swear this woman has been through more than 20 years of actual plot and yet she still seems to be a hot woman in her mid 30s?) Slaughter is stuck in that dance many crime novel writers are these days where they are committed to writing about cops (surely the new Will Trent tv show only locked Slaughter in even more to this series) but they are struggling with the fact that so many cops are not good but they have to make their cop still good somehow, no one does it very well, Slaughter included.
The mystery here is big enough with so much going on that we don't get overly bogged down in personal life. This is what makes so many of her series novels tedious for me, but while there is a personal connection to this crime for Will, and plenty of thematic overlap with his own history, there is an awful lot to do plot-wise so we don't really get all muddled down in it. Plus none of it ever leaks out into his relationships with Sara, Faith, or Amanda. A relief. Mostly this is standard thriller territory and we get to just let things play out.
It is definitely V.C. Andrews territory, the wrap up is A Lot with so much potential exposition that we have to do much of it through flashback, and Will and Sara end up doing an awful lot of explaining what must have happened to other rightfully confused characters. But it's fine. It's not bad. If you want a quick beach read full of trauma, this will fit the bill.
I remain so curious about why Slaughter writes such aggressively heterosexual novels. ...more
2.5 stars. Started off pretty strong but it's not easy to pull off this high of a concept and ultimately the book isn't up for it.
The first third real2.5 stars. Started off pretty strong but it's not easy to pull off this high of a concept and ultimately the book isn't up for it.
The first third really works, the idea that a rich woman would swoop in and bring this lookalike in to shake things up and maybe lead her to the guilty party. But this conceit can only last so long. There aren't a lot of discoveries to make, and there aren't any more reasons for Jenny to stay around. And the last half is your standard Protagonist Makes Ridiculous Decisions Just So We Have a Plot stuff.
Except for the lookalike plot which could just be a coincidence but then it weirdly becomes not though the book doesn't know what to do with that, either. ...more
2.5 stars. Look this isn't a totally incompetent mystery. By most measures it's pretty solid. But it just bothered me at every turn. If I wasn't alway2.5 stars. Look this isn't a totally incompetent mystery. By most measures it's pretty solid. But it just bothered me at every turn. If I wasn't always in such a Oh No What Will I Listen To Now mode in audiobooks I probably would have quit.
I didn't like any of the characters, which can be fine, but not even the ones I was supposed to like. Ffion I hated the least but I hated her personal plot. Every part of it was very easy to see coming, and I think I would have liked it all much better if she'd just been able to be a prickly person and not have this very traumatic emotional plot arc. I didn't like Leo either. Do not even get me started around his personal growth arc, he starts out a terrible parent and ends up... only marginally better!
You are clearly supposed to hate everyone at The Shore because they are all suspects. But dear lord we spend SO MUCH TIME getting flashbacks to everything that has ever happened to make them hate the victim, it reaches a point of absurdity. Like we get it. Everyone hates him. They are all bad people. It was like this book wanted every single character to be guilty of some terrible crime and that gets boring rather than interesting.
This was definitely one of those The Victim Is So Evil How Did He Not Get Murdered Already? books. There is a lot of sexual violence in this book. And this man has done so much of it for so long and clear it's a pattern, it's unclear that he is able to interact with a woman in a way that is not sexually violent. I'm not saying men like this don't exist. But even people who know what he does don't give him a wide berth or warn other people about him. Everyone just stays on.
But hilariously my biggest complaint is that this book uses Cwm Coed's smallness where everyone knows everything as a rule of thumb AND YET one of the book's biggest plot point no one in this small town knows about which I do not believe for a single second. Everyone would know! Even if they didn't know they would have guessed! And it just annoyed me so much that at that point I could not get over it and this book was pretty much dead to me.
On the bright side, the audiobook narration was nice. Afaik all the Welsh was solid. Though I always wish when you have a book that is Very Welsh like this book is that the whole book would get a Welsh accent instead of just a few characters.
Being Welsh was by far the best thing about this book! More Welsh!...more
I've read this one a couple times before but it had been a long time, definitely since before the massive number of Ripley knockoffs we've had for theI've read this one a couple times before but it had been a long time, definitely since before the massive number of Ripley knockoffs we've had for the last decade or so. I've been reading Highsmith's backlist for a while and it was a nice way to approach this, seeing it as part of her larger body of work, how well it fits in. It has that trademark slow burn, the moral flatness. It is not about being a criminal mastermind, but about finding your best way out of a scrape in the moment.
It's interesting how much the Minghella film adaptation has infiltrated our collective consciousness. Because this isn't really a novel about beautiful people in sunny Italy. And I like the original version better, where Marge is from the midwest and Tom notes how big her rear end is to himself in that judge-y way he has about everyone who stands between him and what he wants.
While I remembered the book as having homosexual undertones (also a Highsmith regular feature) I was so surprised to find that they are not undertones! It is stated, and stated often. Over and over again. It is part of what menaces Tom and follows him through the book. Not just being found out as a killer, but being seen as a gay man. So surprising and unusual for a book from the 50's.
I always meant to keep going in the series but never did. Might finally get around to it this time....more
3.5 stars. At the very beginning of the book there is an awful lot of business. We have a story but first there is a letter and then we have a diary a3.5 stars. At the very beginning of the book there is an awful lot of business. We have a story but first there is a letter and then we have a diary and it all seemed a bit much. And then, strangely, the story itself seemed too simple, the killer too obvious. But, it turns out, Takagi has created a very carefully constructed mystery here, one where you must stick with it to see all the ways in which it isn't what you think. A real hall of mirrors of a mystery, that's even better because for so much of it it seems anything but.
I did get a bit bored in the middle, but it was more than worth the ending. That made me want to clap. Clearly this was a book that was built, entirely, around all these sneaky little end twists (Shyamalan-y several decades early) but they were great twists and I was happy I stuck around for the end.
Locked room mysteries never interest me much, almost all of them are mechanical solutions and for modern readers it's often very difficult to picture all the weird business with keys and windows and strings that inevitably are explored as you search for the possible solution. The solution rarely interests me and luckily Takagi gets that.
Like many 20th century Japanese mysteries it has a deep love for the genre, is bursting with references and homages, and even if the plot can get a bit slow, it's worth the ride. ...more
Moore is very good at pulling you in, at slowly opening up a story for you piece by piece. What she is not so good at in this book is the second half,Moore is very good at pulling you in, at slowly opening up a story for you piece by piece. What she is not so good at in this book is the second half, at taking all these pieces and bringing them together in a way that is satisfying. It is not entirely her fault, in a story with a mystery you inevitably move from many possibilities to just one. It is often an exercise in organization, in the removal of entropy, taking chaos and ending up with one simple answer. Sometimes that is satisfying and sometimes it isn't. And this book, for me, wasn't.
The hook is strong. A girl at a camp is missing. A girl whose brother disappeared in the same woods years earlier. It is the kind of story where our focus isn't on the center as much as the edges: the girl's new best friend at camp, the girl's camp counselor, the lone female investigator on the case. And this story, of missing Barbara, has lots of questions and good pacing and really comes to life. Unfortunately it all gets bogged down by this older story, of Barbara's brother who disappeared and is presumed dead and all of it happened before she was even born. Of the wealthy Van Laar family, of Barbara's mistreated and troubled mother, of the conflict between this rich family and the fading town nearby full of people whose ancestors sold their land to the Van Laar's generations before. The pieces are all there in this story, too, and somehow they never come together. In fact, Barbara's story is solved for all intents and purposes so quickly that we are left with this other one, which apparently is the more important one but is also the much less interesting one.
Moore does give a lot of life to Tracy, Louise, and Judyta, the non-Van-Laar protagonists, but their stories inevitably wind down as we lose focus on Barbara's story. It all ends in ways that are predictable and also kind of ridiculous. The book thinks the ending is happy but I found it to be rather fantastical, when the rest of the book had been so practical and straightforward. It felt like there were clearer ways to reach this end point, but it's a quibble, really....more
Tess Sharpe delivers again, I wasn't sure it would be possible to make a compelling sequel to The Girls I've Been but she really pulls it off. Raises Tess Sharpe delivers again, I wasn't sure it would be possible to make a compelling sequel to The Girls I've Been but she really pulls it off. Raises the stakes, has plenty of twists and discoveries, gets us deeper with these characters, and does it all at a relentless pace.
These books are actually very character driven despite all the action, and here we get to dig down not just into Nora but into Iris and Wes. They are all people who can't help taking action, people who will take big risks for the people they care about, but it comes from different places and for different reasons.
Big feelings, big action, and also this book is very funny. High marks all around. Once again I did the audio, which Sharpe reads herself, and she delivers there, too....more
With her third book out since the Dublin Murder Squad, it's clear this is the New Tana French. And this New French is going to take her sweet time, toWith her third book out since the Dublin Murder Squad, it's clear this is the New Tana French. And this New French is going to take her sweet time, to the extent she has a plot it's not going to be full of surprises or bait and switches, she's just going to let it all play out, and we're no longer going to be in real Procedural Procedurals with cops guiding us through. I am not mad about it.
Although I did not enjoy THE SEARCHER, it had nothing to do with these new stylistic choices and everything to do with the specific character arc and theme. Thankfully most of that has been put aside for THE HUNTER, as can be the case with this kind of story, it was the introduction to these characters that had some real weaknesses but now that we can settle in with them it's much more enjoyable.
What I think French does best here is conflict. I still don't 100% buy how easy breezy Cal and Trey's relationship is, but the ways they keep secrets from each other, try to do what's best for each other, and then find themselves at odds with each other is really nicely done. Trey in particular is a perfectly drawn teenager and it's nice to get in her head. (I still think French's previous teen-heavy novel, THE SECRET PLACE, was one of her best.) She is hot headed, she is convinced she knows best, she will oppose someone for no good reason but because she feels like it. Having so much of Trey in this book was one of the highlights, for sure.
There is a plot, but it takes its sweet time. Despite the slowness we still get a pretty big climax and it's a great "who did it" answer, it reminded me how good French is at giving you a reveal that is a surprise and yet so obvious as soon as she shows you.
These days you just have to sit back and let French be slow and if that's not for you then go ahead and head elsewhere. I am excited to see where she takes us, though I admit that it feels like she's really squeezed so much out of these characters that I personally wouldn't want another Cal Hooper book. ...more
A journalist sits down for a coveted interview with a convicted serial killer. They do not talk about her crimes, only food. Instead the incarcerated A journalist sits down for a coveted interview with a convicted serial killer. They do not talk about her crimes, only food. Instead the incarcerated woman tells the free woman to go take a bowl of just cooked rice, add a little soy sauce, and then get a bite with a pat of cold butter on top. Let the butter melt in your mouth, she says. "When I'm eating good butter I feel somehow as though I were falling."
I wasn't sure if I wanted to read a 450+ page novel, but it was this sequence that won me over. When Rika goes home from the interview, she follows instructions. She cooks so rarely she has to buy a rice cooker just for this purpose. And when she eats the rice with butter it is, somehow, transformative. It is the beginning of a journey.
Rika is a workaholic journalist, stuck in the grind of reporting, hoping to work her way up to the editorial desk. Rika doesn't plan to marry or have children, she has a boyfriend she doesn't care much about and barely sees, she never cooks. Manako is a career girlfriend, now imprisoned, after three of her much older boyfriends died suddenly. Manako doesn't like other women, she sees her whole purpose in life as to be a domestic ideal, providing food and pleasure to men who keep her in a comfortable lifestyle. And to make the story a more complex triangle there is also Reiko, Rika's closest college friend, who left a strong career in marketing to get married and is in fertility treatments to try and have chidren. Reiko and Rika seem to be growing apart, but Manako, who somehow is a counterpoint to both of them, becomes the object of a mutual obsession.
Rika wants a big cover story interview. But over time it becomes less about the interview and more about what she is experiencing. The fancy imported butter, an exquisite French restaurant, eating ramen in the middle of a cold winter night right after sex. She continues to recreate Manako's greatest pleasures, exploring this woman who is so different from herself.
There is so much wrapped up in here about women in Japanese culture. Manako is the object of intense scorn and derision even though it seems likely she didn't kill anyone. It is less that these men are dead and more that Manako has won over the adoration of these wealthy men before they died when she is not the ideal of a thin, subservient woman. She is fat and happily so, comfortable with herself, bold, opinionated, often brash. Rika wants to understand her, but as she indulges in foods Manako tells her about, she does not exactly become Manako but she does become someone else.
This is not a procedural or a thriller. We do not have a mystery to solve. It's never clear if Manako actually contributed to the death of these men and it's not really the issue. Instead Manako herself is the mystery, how can a woman like this exist? And what is missing from Rika's own life? It is a story of pleasure and desire, through food in particular. It's about dysfunctional families and patriarchy and what it means to build community. While it can feel very dark at times, this is ultimately a very optimistic novel where we see Rika and Reiko explore themselves. (I also found a lot of queer subtext here, kept waiting for it to become text, but sadly it never does. The only real fault I have with this book is the way it ultimately sidesteps sexual discovery when it seems like it's heading right for it.)
Yes, it took a while to read but I was so happy to come back to it night after night. ...more
Twisty true crime podcast thriller that actually satisfies. Look this book is not rocket science but it does what it needs to do, and most of the thriTwisty true crime podcast thriller that actually satisfies. Look this book is not rocket science but it does what it needs to do, and most of the thrillers these days are all bark no bite, just throwing crazy twists at you but leaving you with nothing to show for it. Doesn't give you a big fat twist, but does give you a very nice shift in the story about halfway through that comes right when it seems like things are getting boring. There are some threads this picks up that it doesn't explore fully, but again this isn't trying to be a literary crime novel but a thriller so it's not really a problem.
Did the audio, which went well. The podcast excerpts included stand out but aren't too annoying to go back and forth from. ...more
The pieces were all there but this never gelled for me. Disliked the boyfriend from the jump, which really didn't help matters. The central mystery waThe pieces were all there but this never gelled for me. Disliked the boyfriend from the jump, which really didn't help matters. The central mystery was much less interesting than the friendship drama, but then the friendship drama gets mostly dropped near the end. ...more
A real lesson in how to go wrong in the current twisty thriller subgenre. The first half is often rather silly but it's propulsive, at least. Silly isA real lesson in how to go wrong in the current twisty thriller subgenre. The first half is often rather silly but it's propulsive, at least. Silly is not really that bad, it is actually pretty common and there's a kind of hyperreality that you tend to find in these thrillers that makes them more fun. Hollander does it well.
The second half is exactly what it should not be, with explanations and twists that are not satisfying or interesting. When you spend all this time on buildup if the actual story itself is, well, not even all that interesting, if the thing your character is very scared of is not actually scary and would not even reflect badly on them, then your reader wonders why are we here? Hollander withholds information very well (too well, I'd say) but if you are going to withhold then you have to make the reveal enjoyable. The reveals here are just boring. I was mad at this book for getting me interested in the first place.
I probably should have quit this book but by the time I'd made it halfway I felt obligated to finish, at least to see what kind of conclusion this ridI probably should have quit this book but by the time I'd made it halfway I felt obligated to finish, at least to see what kind of conclusion this ridiculous story could be pointing towards. It was even more ridiculous than I expected. The whole thing is absurd, it's also about triple the length it needs to be, every single thing is drawn out in great detail. There is a whole set of diary entries that are not diary entries and it's unclear why they couldn't just be alternate point of view sections of the story. Nothing about the crime makes sense. Nothing about the explanation makes sense. It is all very silly but no fun....more
I really enjoyed Michaelides' first novel, THE SILENT PATIENT, and I've hated both his books since then, including this one. I don't know what happeneI really enjoyed Michaelides' first novel, THE SILENT PATIENT, and I've hated both his books since then, including this one. I don't know what happened exactly, that he could write one very good book and then two very bad books, but here we are. This book has only one thing going for it, its tendency to rewind and then replay the same timeline over and over again, each time adding a new set of details that give everything a different context. It's not such a bad trick, but the problem is there is no point to it. The whole thing is overwrought but there is no core, no center, no one to care about, no stakes. It is all just storytelling tricks and manipulations. A real bummer....more
3.5 stars. I probably would have enjoyed this one more if I hadn't done audio, as character names (Sowon and Sungwhan and Seryong, Yongje and Hyonsu) 3.5 stars. I probably would have enjoyed this one more if I hadn't done audio, as character names (Sowon and Sungwhan and Seryong, Yongje and Hyonsu) look different on the page but often sounded so similar I had trouble keeping everyone straight for much of the story.
It's an interesting story within a story, where Sowon, the son of a famous killer, discovers the story of what really happened to his father when he finds a manuscript written by Sungwhan, his guardian. Hyonsu's crimes were so awful they are almost impossible to comprehend, and through the novel within a novel we come to discover that the story is much more complex and much different.
The real weakness lies in the characters. One character is so over the top evil it's hard to imagine him existing in the world. Women are often side characters. And our protagonists, Sowon and Sungwhan, don't really get to be people as much as they are plot points. The idea itself is strong and the plot is complex enough to keep you interested, though....more
2.5 stars. I liked this more than The Appeal in some ways but less in others. It is definitely a more cohesive whole (whereas The Appeal was full of e2.5 stars. I liked this more than The Appeal in some ways but less in others. It is definitely a more cohesive whole (whereas The Appeal was full of emails that no one would ever write) but the plot itself is the problem here. We start with an intriguing premise, as we follow the various documents and recordings of a true crime writer who's under contract to reconsider the case of a small cult responsible for several suicides and a murder.
But this is not at all where you end up, and it's a shame. Hallett is doing way too many things here, and maybe I would mind less if the starting point wasn't better than all the other threads. In the end, the cult stuff takes third or fourth billing and what we get is just pieces, really, nothing that really gels.
Until it goes off the rails with like 5 plots, though, it's a lot of fun to follow along. Even though I kept rolling my eyes at the cheeky transcriptionist who keeps leaving notes in her transcriptions with her own thoughts. ...more
Andy Hughes Is A Good Man. How do we know he is good? First of all, the book tells us so. Constantly. Everyone Andy ever meets must in every conversatAndy Hughes Is A Good Man. How do we know he is good? First of all, the book tells us so. Constantly. Everyone Andy ever meets must in every conversation with him say that he is a good man, that he made good choices, that he is ethical, that he is smart, that he is a good lawyer. It sure must be nice being Andy Hughes and getting all this constant praise. Secondly, he has all the pieces of Good Man according to a certain generation. He is a caring father to his son, he adopts a lonely dog, he falls in love with a good woman, he is a skilled carpenter and handyman. He has all the Good Man trappings. He is not so much a character as a certain kind of Goodness personified, walking around in this book.
The story we have here is how this Very Good Man ends up representing a Very Bad One. Just as Andy is Good, his client Damien is Bad. Damien's only good quality is that he is smart, though we are told he has squandered his potential. Damien has to be smart so that he can be a constant thorn in Andy's side. Everything Damien ever says is mean and cruel. Everything Damien has ever done is reckless, dangerous, and brutal. Damien only cares about himself, he is regularly referred to as a sociopath, he is violent for no reason besides "drugs". Damien is so Bad that it strains credulity in the same way Andy's Goodness does.
In the battle between good and evil that this novel sets up, the thing that really matters is the titular plinko bounce, that Damien somehow has the best luck that has ever existed and what looks like an unwinnable case on a murder charge suddenly becomes a very winnable one. Even though he is guilty.
Besides its cardboard cutout characters (Damien is Bad, one character is A Politician Who Cannot Be Trusted, and everyone else is Good) this is a book that clearly has a moral point of view. Morality in fiction is something I think about a lot, especially in crime novels. Crime novels generally have nothing to do with real crime, they ignore the real criminal justice system where almost everyone who is arrested and imprisoned is poor and usually not white. Instead we have novels where cops are noble and criminals are rich and powerful and the system suddenly becomes this just thing instead of the deeply unjust thing it really is. But every now and then you get a book that wants to be about a more accurate version of the system. This book thinks that is what it is, that it is about the one in a million case. But it isn't. It thinks it is about a Good Man in an impossible situation. It's not.
Because Andy Hughes is not a Good Man. He may be technically good in court, but I also wouldn't call him a Good Lawyer. Andy is simply here to address the age old question every defense attorney gets: what happens when you have to defend a guilty client? Clark's answer is this book. Clark's answer is not the answer most good defense attorneys would give you.
The real answer to this question (yes, I did actually have this job for several years so I am not just making this up) is that most of your clients are guilty. The real answer is that most of your clients will plead guilty whether they are guilty or not because battling the system is an almost impossible thing to do even with a perfect public defender because the system may say it is innocent until proven guilty but that is not how it actually works. The real answer is that when you work in this system and see how almost all of your clients are unable to escape the poverty that led to their charges in the first place in the neverending cycle of incarceration and policing, you do not spend a whole lot of time worrying about a guilty client who might end up not being convicted. It is very rare. And when it does happen it is almost always because the system messed up, because you were able to hold police and prosecutors accountable for their actions, and demand that they follow the law. Most defense attorneys spend very little time worrying about this. And the ones who really should worry about it are the highly paid private attorneys who represent white collar criminals, not the public defenders. (When Andy gets an opportunity to move into that kind of work he has no qualms and the book sees it as an excellent turn of events.) That is all the real world.
This book is not set in the real world. (It is set in the real Patrick County, Virginia. Which, coincidentally, is very close to Mount Airy, NC, the home of Andy Griffith, which brands itself as Mayberry. It's fitting.) In this book, Andy our Very Good Man, has been a public defender for 17 years or so. It is unclear why Andy has this job. We never hear why, just what a good lawyer he is. Career public defenders come in two general varieties: the passionate ones and the ones who don't care. Andy doesn't seem to be either. He has no passion for defending the indigent. We see him interact with two clients (including the Very Bad Damien) and he clearly loathes them both. Does this happen? Sure. Every PD has clients they dislike, clients who are always trouble, but this is all we ever see Andy do and as far as we know it is the only kind of client Andy ever has. Andy definitely isn't one of the Doesn't Care because, well, he is Good. And if you are Good you have to care.
In this fantasy world, Andy (justifiably) hates his clients but is very friendly with the cops and prosecutors he's worked with for the last 17 years. They are all pals. They all tell Andy how good of a person he is. There is one bad apple, but Andy quickly identifies him, the sheriff's office swiftly disavows him, and everyone congratulates Andy on returning the system to its pure state once again. There are places, and it's particularly common in rural areas, where all these people are pals. Where a PD would be more loyal to the cops and prosecutors than to his clients. But that is not Good Lawyering. That is very very bad lawyering.
I was so constantly baffled by this book. Clark was a longtime judge, and he gets the procedure right. And it's clear he finds this story interesting because it's so heightened, because it is a Very Bad Man who gets every lucky break. But Clark presents this to us without much context, where this case is all we really have to go on, and where every character must constantly moralize to us about what is right and wrong in these situations. They, like the novel, are fixated on this one crazy case which seems to shake everyone to their core as if it Means Something. To make sure we really hate Damien, this murder is committed for no reason at all and the victim is of course a perfect saint, a mother of 4. (Although if Damien is as terrible as they say with as long a record as we're always told he has, it's unclear why he wouldn't already be on probation/parole and this would all be a violation that would have him locked up for a whole long time making the murder case itself rather inconsequential.)
This book acts like it is about the real world and the real troubles in it, but it's all confusing and inconsistent. Like how everyone tells Andy he is the best lawyer ever especially for a public defender, implying that of course all public defenders are not good lawyers, but simultaneously presenting us with several other public defenders who are also good lawyers. Why is Andy so special? Why is there a rich Mormon living in rural Virginia? Why does no one ever plead guilty in this PD's office? Try to bring the real world and this novel will thwart it at every turn. It just wants to live in this perfect little world with these very specific morals.
All of this builds to an ending that is absolutely not earned and arguably goes against Clark's entire setup and moral compass. Where Andy feels some personal need to take control of the situation. As if a 17 year public defender hasn't spent his entire career seeing the system not work, seeing justice not served, seeing lives ruined. But now, well, some rich little girls may find out their dad cheated on their mom, a horror that the book seems to treat as worse than the murder of that mom. Even if you love this book you will possibly hate the ending.
This book, I think, was made in a lab specifically for me to hate it. I know enough about what it is about to know all the ways it's wrong. On top of all the criminal justice stuff, it also somehow decides to throw Mormonism into the mix (I'm not only a former PD but I grew up Mormon) which is awfully weird as Mormons are pretty rare in the rural Southeast. But eventually I figured it out. It has to have a rich Mormon because that way it can most easily evoke Southern prejudices without hitting any messy racial discrimination. (Only Bad Damien is racist, everyone else is not.) Andy, in a Bad Lawyer moment, encourages this prejudice by leaning into factually untrue beliefs about the church, and then is so horrified by everyone taking those insinuations and running them into full blown conspiracy theories. How could this have happened when he was such a Good Lawyer, what a shame.
I could write all day about how much this book bothered me. I could create an annotated edition. I have really just scratched the surface here and have probably gotten so ramped up that my arguments are more rambling screed than concise, helpful review. But it is truly rare that I read a book that I find so weirdly morally awful when it is so convinced it is morally good. When it on its face should align with my own principles. I will acknowledge that while set in 2020, the one thing I appreciated was that it is pretty specific about characters distancing and masking, which so many stories of the pandemic leave out entirely. But this was truly the only thing the entire book that I did not hate with a deep and growing passion.
I did this book on audio. It made the unusual choice of having a second female reader do all the women's dialogue. I can't decide if I like this or not. It is better, I admit, than having a male reader do a terrible job of women's voices. But when he does conversations between two male characters he is just fine at differentiating them. (Relies too heavily on accents, but still.) Can't we just have readers do better at working across genders? Is it too much to ask?...more
A second-tier Higashino for me, which is a first-tier from most other crime novelists. Has a lot of pre-work to do, and its biggest weakness is how itA second-tier Higashino for me, which is a first-tier from most other crime novelists. Has a lot of pre-work to do, and its biggest weakness is how it insists on focusing immediately on certain characters and connections which are so tenuous they feel almost ridiculous but of course turn out to be the center of the story. By the end I actually found the whole thing quite interesting but it was like we had to take the most roundabout route to get there. I think another structure could have served the plot better....more
This has a very different energy from the previous two Isaka novels I read (BULLET TRAIN and ASSASSINS). Feels more like a series of vignettes than a This has a very different energy from the previous two Isaka novels I read (BULLET TRAIN and ASSASSINS). Feels more like a series of vignettes than a novel until you're about halfway through and it starts to come together. And it has a much slower rhythm, a much less manic feel, even though it is set in the same universe that is so packed with unusual assassins and criminals. It is almost mundane, and its insistence on the overbearing wife subplot for so much is something you have to just grit your teeth and tolerate. But sticking with it does have its rewards. The second half becomes a much more complex story and we see that we've just had a lot of slowly laying groundwork to get here. With separate timelines and finally some very fun sequences with an array of double crosses, the journey is worth the destination. ...more
Right away I was rolling my eyes at the classroom part of this plot. I tried to ignore it. After all, so many novels and films use classroom discussioRight away I was rolling my eyes at the classroom part of this plot. I tried to ignore it. After all, so many novels and films use classroom discussion as completely unsubtle laying out of themes. But this book does it way more than I've ever seen. There are just so many class discussions and Hennigan makes so much of this novel around the class that it quickly grows tedious. It's a major flaw. But I assumed Hennigan was taking somewhere worth going. But she is not, another major flaw. That's two too many for me.
It does not help that I went to law school and just kept thinking it was all ridiculous. No one would want to take this Law & Literature class. They definitely wouldn't write an entire essay just to be considered. And they wouldn't find the class itself interesting. Especially since apparently this is the kind of course where you are supposed to read all of Paradise Lost or Crime and Punishment for a single week's discussion. Jessie thinks her essay on Antigone is really great but I just kept thinking this is the most boring and obvious topic for a law and literature essay, you would never get into this class. And then the conversations themselves are just not all that exciting, they just keep happening, over and over, these long back and forths. Often Hennigan will have similar long tangents as Jessie considers her actions, considers her philosophies, considers her choices. They are also quite tedious.
And for all of that, it just has nowhere to go. It sets us up as if this is going to a big conclusion, but it is not. It is a ridiculous plot in the first place, but it pretends to be this high stakes thriller when it just is not. I wish it had either been something more interesting or really thrown the wheels off and gone harder with some thriller energy. As it is, I was just mad at it by the time I was done....more
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