Review: The Case of the Pig in the Evening Suit -- catchy title, right?
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 6, 2014
This book has a lot going for it.  An interesting title (yes, I picked it for the title), a fun set of characters, a very intriguing plot, a -- for me, at least -- exotic setting, yet I only rated it a 3.The things that usually make me crazy weren't running rampant in this book.  Yes, there were a couple of misused words, maybe a half dozen:  you for your, by for my.  Simple proofreading fails.  But, for the most part there was little to stop my progress or to take me out of the action.  The story is set in Scotland and there are a lot of Scottish idioms used, but the author uses them expertly, allowing me to understand the terms from context, even if I'd never run across the idiom before.  Plus that, the author has a page on his website devoted to idioms used in his novels where one can go to check out idioms not understood from the context [...].  Brilliant idea!The plot, as I said is intriguing and complex.  Gall does a great job of drawing the reader in and bringing up many questions that keep the reader reading on in order to find the answers.  The main character, Jin Johnstone, is fun, fully fleshed out and the reader instantly cares for this bumbling amateur detective, who seemingly stumbles across trouble at every turn.  His BFF, Asa, is also a compelling character and the relationship between the two is very down to earth and believable.  The other non-villainous characters are interesting, add to the understanding of Jin's character, and help to move the plot forward.So what didn't I like enough that I only rated the book 3 stars?  Up to the point of seemingly solving the main mystery (yes, main -- Jin undertakes several mysteries in the novel, some that dovetail with the main mystery and some that do not), I was very engaged, anxious to get back to reading when I had to put the book down, and I found all that lead to that point relatively believable.  Relatively -- that Jin sure did escape a lot of absolutely life-threatening situations, maybe too many to completely believe that anyone could have that much luck or be that totally oblivious or that stupidly daring!  But, once that main mystery -- the one about the origin of the Pig in the Evening Suit, was solved, I thought ends would tie up and the novel would come to a conclusion.  But no.  First, there was much more of the author's plot to go.  It's not that the rest of the plot wasn't interesting or that it didn't make sense in the story, it was more or less a letdown (to me, just one reader), to have there be more to go after feeling that the end of the story had already arrived.  I stress that again -- to me, just one reader.  However, the story did go on, and I kept reading to the end.  The end was satisfactory, and, if I hadn't mistakenly assumed the novel had ended earlier, I might have found that last section more interesting than I did.  I also felt the relationship with Chiara was left without resolution, but as this was just the first in a trilogy, perhaps that relationship will be more fleshed out as the series continues.Sadly, I'll never know.  While I enjoyed this book, I didn't enjoy it enough to continue reading the series.  Perhaps I'll reconsider that decision with the passage of time.