Amy R. (AmyMarie) - , reviewed The Arnifour Affair (Colin Pendragon, Bk 1) on + 46 more book reviews
I'd have to agree with the previous reviewer who stated that the protagonist isn't very likable. He's constantly rolling a coin over his knuckles, lifting weights, polishing his knives, or randomly dropping to the floor to crank out ten pushups on a whim, and yet we never really get a feel for him at all. He seems like a rough stereotype of the big alpha male, but there's no real depth to him at all.
The other thing that drove me crazy was the author's penchant for using exaggerated verbs when simple ones would do. A boy "stabbed his hat back on his head," Colin "stabbed a coin from his pocket," and "plastered a brooding gaze out the window." Nobody walks in this book. They saunter, sidle, march, thunder (down the stairs), plod, or meander. It's even more noticeable in the dialog. In most cases, "said" would have worked just fine, or the author could have eliminated the dialog tag altogether, but it's like he jumped through hoops looking for other words to use. In one half-page of dialog on page 83, we have people growling, snorting, snapping, thundering, and bellowing (twice!) their lines. And that's not an isolated incident, by any means. Every verbal exchange involves howling, hollering, mumbling, snickering, snapping, scoffing, grunting, or groaning. (I almost wish I had it in ebook so I could see how many times the words "snorted" and "snickered" are used.) It's probably supposed to lend color to the narrative, but I found it very distracting. If the author had put the thesaurus away and devoted that energy to fleshing out his characters instead, the book would have been much improved.
In the end, not a terrible book, but I don't think I'll bother with book 2.
The other thing that drove me crazy was the author's penchant for using exaggerated verbs when simple ones would do. A boy "stabbed his hat back on his head," Colin "stabbed a coin from his pocket," and "plastered a brooding gaze out the window." Nobody walks in this book. They saunter, sidle, march, thunder (down the stairs), plod, or meander. It's even more noticeable in the dialog. In most cases, "said" would have worked just fine, or the author could have eliminated the dialog tag altogether, but it's like he jumped through hoops looking for other words to use. In one half-page of dialog on page 83, we have people growling, snorting, snapping, thundering, and bellowing (twice!) their lines. And that's not an isolated incident, by any means. Every verbal exchange involves howling, hollering, mumbling, snickering, snapping, scoffing, grunting, or groaning. (I almost wish I had it in ebook so I could see how many times the words "snorted" and "snickered" are used.) It's probably supposed to lend color to the narrative, but I found it very distracting. If the author had put the thesaurus away and devoted that energy to fleshing out his characters instead, the book would have been much improved.
In the end, not a terrible book, but I don't think I'll bother with book 2.
The Arnifour Affair by Gregory Harris. Briefly, this is my take: Colin Pendragon and his partner Ethan Pruitt are sleuths in turn of the century London. They are privately hired to solve a double murder and are definitely at odds with Scotland Yard. I won't go into more details about the plot other than to say that the family involved is full of conniving liars and somebody is the murderer. I pretty much had this one figured out about half way through it. The off-putting part of this book is the MC - arrogant, rude and bombastic, IMHO. I find it's not much fun to dislike the main character! Also, there are terms used that weren't used at that time and the MC has some really irritating habits which the author repeats over and over again. The only interesting factor in this book is Pruitt who is also the narrator. I'm giving this book about 3 stars and only for the redeeming factor of the narrator!
