Review: Room for Improvement on this First Effort
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2011
I really wanted to like this book, as I am a sucker for books set in Southern California, especially places where I either lived or visited many times. Palm Springs is in the latter category. While the opening chapter had promise, with its details of the real estate industry that ring true to me, the rest of the book was very disappointing.First of all, if the book was written in 2004, and there is no indication that it is a period piece set in the 1960s-1980s, then why name the protagonist Henry (outside of the royal family, I don't know many Henrys, especially one born in 1942: book set in 2004, Henry is 62, etc). And his wife's name was Irma? Why not Cynthia, or Nancy, or Linda -- names that were popular during the 1940s and don't have a whiff of the 1920s or 30s about them. They were married in the late 1960s -- not right after VJ Day! This may seem minor, but I have little interest in reading about a Henry, or an Irma, even though she dies before the story opens. It ages them for me --- gives, at least to me, an impression of a really, really old married couple.Next, there is far too much detail about the little things in Henry's life -- the razor Henry uses, what kind of sandwich old Irma ate before she died in their Las Vegas hotel room, the list goes on and on. As another reviewer noted, this seems like padding to bring up the word count. And the author jumped around with the back story on Henry and Irma -- I thought we were through with the back story, and there it comes again, right in the middle of Henry walking around the house where the murder took place.I am glad to read that the author is going to revise this book. I hope that he tightens the action, and doesn't give us every little detail of Henry's morning rituals, etc. as though he were Marcel Proust. As to the names --- well, we are probably stuck with them....I will keep checking for the revised version, as I still am hooked on the setting, and I admire anyone who takes the time to write and publish, knowing that he or she is opening themselves up to criticism.