I'm glad to report the aliens have repaired my hard drive, my kids have kindly quit holding my computer hostage, the brain reformed, the flue finally dried up, and I'm back from England (thank you, Histrel, for an amazing visit to York). So, no excuses are left for not writing. Well, except that I'm here instead of there. This blog was calling my name so I thought I'd take a break from writing and update everyone. Yeah, I know, another excuse not to write.
I need to report that I've finished the book I wrote about earlier. It's called Full Dark House and Christopher Fowler is the author. It isn't bad, not great, but not bad. There is a tremendous amount of jumping from present to past and back again without any warning. This is a bit confusing in the beginning, but, if you read for longer than a few minutes at a time, you catch on to the time leaps pretty quickly and the story starts to make sense. He does a nice job of making some very interesting characters. I find myself liking his MC's and his minor roles are full blown people. Some writers, me included, forget to make the walk-ons have as much personality as the MC's even though they don't play a big role in the story. The problem I have with this book is with the mystery itself. There's enough death and gore to go around and you feel like you're nicely on the trail of the killer when he switches tacks on you. The real answer comes out of nowhere and that particular storyline isn't introduced until quite late in the book. I think that's what I like least about this book. The whole thing is logical and stumbles along quite nicely until the last 1/4 of the book. All of the sudden, there is a new element that, quite frankly, was irritating to me. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind surprise endings but this one made no real sense. Most surprise endings make sense after you know the answer. You can look back on the story and see that you were set up all the way through. Not so here. There is nothing to suggest that the answer is involved in the case at all. It was a great disappointment. However, it is the first in a series, and because he did such a good job with his characters, I am willing to buy the next in the series to see if he gets better with his mysteries. If he does not, and I'm afraid he won't, that will be it. I won't be buying anymore. So, there you have it, my thoughts on Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. If you like a mystery whose answer makes no sense and you enjoy really good character development, this is the book for you.
In other news, T is thinking of playing a dancing video game with some friends from school. He knows he's being set up for a huge loss of dignity but he's willing to go through with it anyway. Usually, there is only one reason why a teen would be willing to do this sort of thing. I'll let you figure it out. Em's band class is having a team building luau next Friday. I'm not sure what eating hot dogs and chips then doing activities has to do with a luau but there you have it.
One more piece of information to give you something to think about. Just because something is the size of a rat does not make it a rat. Gnaw on that thought for a while and see where it takes you.
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