I don't usually read crime fiction, and this is not an author I'd heard of, so this was a bit of a step in the dark for me, but I was pleasantly surprised. Very little blood or gore (which I thought would be par for the course), just an intriguing mystery with the whodunnit question not revealed until the very end.
It's a murder, of course; one which occurred many years ago in the 1950s, an era fashionably and faithfully reconstructed in chapters alternating (but clearly signposted) with the 1980s - when the main novel is set. The detective protagonist is a feisty female (naturally!) who becomes, by the end, more entangled with the mystery than she finds comfortable.
It's a fast-paced, atmospheric and entertaining read with an ending which is gripping, full of suspense and worth the wait. On the down side, English readers might find the endless Americanisms in the narrative somewhat grating (though strangely enough the dialogue does not seem to have this problem), and the vast array of characters (i.e. suspects) can be very confusing: they are not sufficiently well-drawn to be distinctive, in my opinion, though that might be intentional, given the character of the victim - who is thoroughly dislikeable. I think I might need to read it again to work out exactly what was going on.
On the basis of this one, I would read others by the same author if I came across them, despite that fact that I wouldn't normally choose to read this genre.
No comments:
Post a Comment