Helpful Score: 2
I have a fondness for novels set at the turn of the turn of the 20th century that feature new police technologies, like the study of fingerprints. (Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" is a good example.
I expected Jody Shields "The Fig Eater" to be of this genre. The novel, set in early 20th century Vienna, begins with a mysterious murder of a young woman and the ensuing police investigation. However, while the mystery remains a primary thread throughout the book, the focus quickly shifts from the police investigation to the relationship between the chief inspector and his wife. The wife becomes interested in solving the case without her husband's knowledge, and their parallel investigations put a strain on their marriage. This dynamic becomes the central drama in the novel.
Shields writes well. However, I had not set out to read a novel about a marriage, and found it uninteresting. (Perhaps if I had been in search of such a novel I would have enjoyed it more.) Further, the wife is obsessed with superstition, the paranormal, and the like. This irritated me to no end. I felt I'd been the victim of a bait-and-switch, in which I'd been promised lots of material about the development of new technologies at the beginning of the 20th century and had instead been given seemingly endless prose about werewolves. I can't recommend this book, despite the obvious care in research taken by the author.
I expected Jody Shields "The Fig Eater" to be of this genre. The novel, set in early 20th century Vienna, begins with a mysterious murder of a young woman and the ensuing police investigation. However, while the mystery remains a primary thread throughout the book, the focus quickly shifts from the police investigation to the relationship between the chief inspector and his wife. The wife becomes interested in solving the case without her husband's knowledge, and their parallel investigations put a strain on their marriage. This dynamic becomes the central drama in the novel.
Shields writes well. However, I had not set out to read a novel about a marriage, and found it uninteresting. (Perhaps if I had been in search of such a novel I would have enjoyed it more.) Further, the wife is obsessed with superstition, the paranormal, and the like. This irritated me to no end. I felt I'd been the victim of a bait-and-switch, in which I'd been promised lots of material about the development of new technologies at the beginning of the 20th century and had instead been given seemingly endless prose about werewolves. I can't recommend this book, despite the obvious care in research taken by the author.
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