Review: Dense stew of descriptions.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 07 27, 2013
I think this may be a case of American reading, and English writing.If this novel was written for only UK release, the social jargon and terminology wouldmake a lot more sense. The slow pacing would make more sense also.But, as this is being released internationally, I can only write as an American reader.While I can appreciate the intense catalog of the crime scene, as I'm sure the definitivepiece of evidence is there.... the author takes up the dense descriptive club and beatsthe reader soundly about the head and shoulders until they start defensively skippingpages to fend off the over load and to hopefully move the story along.In the span of five pages, we are told no less than three times that the detective ishoping that his brother wasn't the murderer. By the third time, you want to knifethe brother and the detective and move on to someone else.By page fifty, I still don't care for or about the detective (who is walking through hisscenes) or his brother who is nothing more than a poster glued to a little girlsbedroom door. Slightly out of focus, over-sized, and the depth of twenty-poundposter stock.There is nothing to grab my attention in the first 1,000 words. (or in the first 10,000)so there was not much to interest to drag me through past page sixty.The author needs a stern editor who understands the international market, and isn'tshy about using a red pencil. In this day and age of tweets, and graphic novels, it iseven more upon the author to set the hook in the first two pages, and secure the gaffby the end of the first 3,000 words. The days of Bronte are long gone; no body hasweeks to laze over the written word with long dripping descriptions that you haveto take notes with to keep everything straight.I wish there had been some redeeming quality that I could have focused on, but"dense descriptions".... can be interpreted both ways.