A few days ago I scorned a book for being too like others in its genre. It's a cheap shot at books in any genre; likeness is what collects them. Slightly Abridged makes hay of its differences, though, using them to exercise the expectations.
What it's most like is an mystery; the series investigator is a well-off, thorny ex-English professor. (Surely this is irrelevant to solving murders, except in the genteel-coy confines of cozies.) They differ in character: Boston to New York, confident to self-conscious, professorial to romance novelist. These differences are well enough represented in the way they solve their mysteries, and since that is the machine of the genre, having it chug out different solutions for slightly different input is a pleasure.
Pall's novel would be a pleasure anyway, mostly for its representation of a cautious and talky new romance. The MacGuffin is interestingly gaudy and plausible in the protagonist's life. A few sentences reminded me of the late , though it doesn't keep up that standard.
ISBN: 0-312-28185-4
So wrote clew in Mystery. | TrackBack