Helpful Score: 1
Had high hopes for this book - - - what a disappointment!
Helpful Score: 1
This novel starts out feeling like it is a world class mystery, but then it just gets too strange - so strange, that it's hard to follow. That's really a shame, because the author is a very skilled writer, with enough of a unique story to make for an interesting read. Instead it turns into a semi-science fiction, confusing book, with just enough reference to child pornography to make it an uncomfortable and disappointing read.
Helpful Score: 1
This book started off so well, but became a true disappointment to me. I always feel that I have to finish a book, but this one changed my mind. Sadly, this book was a waste of my precious time.
I managed to reach page 200, but finally the weight of Too Much Plot collapsed the delicate structure of my patience. There's an intriguing murder -- great! A serial killer/rapist, with two possible perps (one of whom has already been, possibly wrongly, executed for the crimes) -- good. The wrongly executed, but still deeply evil, guy seems to be able to return from the dead to haunt anyone investigating his crimes. O-kay. The protagonist -- who is a journalist investigating both of these crimes, at different points in his career -- is married to a young woman who survived a kidnap/murder attempt in which her twin sister was lost, presumed dead. By a yet a third murder/rapist/evil guy. Right. And then there's the SPOILER!!! time travel, Agents of SHIELD-style time travel police, Nikola Tesla and a murderous frogman.
I couldn't take it any more, and I gave up when I realized that I just didn't care. I don't mind confusing, I don't mind weird, and I usually don't mind sf elements boldly going where you don't necessarily expect them. I'll tell you what I did mind, however: Mr. Renner has a tendency to tell, not show. He is a name dropper -- believing that he can create local color with citations from the Yellow Pages and Triple-A Trip-tix maps (Cleveland restaurants, street names, neighbourhoods, every college and university in Ohio, and the Cuyahoga River), and create context with endless, and pointless, pop culture references.
I didn't like it, can you tell?
I couldn't take it any more, and I gave up when I realized that I just didn't care. I don't mind confusing, I don't mind weird, and I usually don't mind sf elements boldly going where you don't necessarily expect them. I'll tell you what I did mind, however: Mr. Renner has a tendency to tell, not show. He is a name dropper -- believing that he can create local color with citations from the Yellow Pages and Triple-A Trip-tix maps (Cleveland restaurants, street names, neighbourhoods, every college and university in Ohio, and the Cuyahoga River), and create context with endless, and pointless, pop culture references.
I didn't like it, can you tell?
