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It took me forever to get through this. And it’s not even 200 pages. It started out well enough then branched into occult stuff which turned out to be a (surprise! NOT!) red herring. Meghan is a psychology professor in a local university who occasionally helps  the police with their inquiries. This time she’s helping look into a series of gruesome murders in Wolverhampton.

I could only force myself to read a page or two in the morning over my Toasty-O’s which meant I could barely remember who the characters were from day to day.  I didn’t care about any of them. I can’t really say why except that they all seem so ordinary and not in a good way. It reminds me of maybe a CSI episode in about season 12 when they just can’t think of anything new to do. So let’s throw in a pentagram because that always gets an Oooooo Arrrrrr. Spare me.

Trouble with the boyfriend? Check. Dicey relationship with the head cop? Check. Possible romance with the beat cop? Check. Misstep gets her in trouble with the boss? Check. Mutually usurious relationship with local media? Check. Kid sister in danger? Check.

And to top it off, the actual bad guy is only introduced in the penultimate chapter of the book. We’ve never even heard of him before except one brief mention early in the book stuck in there for the sole purpose of evoking an “oh, I remember him” from the reader. One sentence, never to appear again until 170 pages later. Bah. I’m reminded of a much underrated film, Murder by Death when the antagonist, Lionel Twain (Truman Capote) says:

You’ve tricked and fooled your readers for years. You’ve tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You’ve introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. You’ve withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it. But now, the tables are turned. Millions of angry mystery readers are now getting their revenge. When the world learns I’ve outsmarted you, they’ll be selling your $1.95 books for twelve cents.

It’s an okay book if you have absolutely nothing else to do.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2008 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.