Suzie

Fun detective novel. Very much full of old-fashioned manor houses and diamond thieves with a bit of colonialism thrown in for good measure. Interesting to see the start of this genre, and there's enough tongue-in-cheek humour and self-awareness to help the book rise above its flaws. A bit long-winded, but only by modern standards.

This is a beautiful book; lyrical, soft, happy without being saccharine, romantic without being ridiculous, tragic without being manipulative, spiritual without being preachy. And with a central female character who has an assured sense of self.

I wanted to like this book more than I did, and some parts were funny. But ultimately I couldn't believe in the character of Eleanor, which is what this book rides on.

This is a snow crash of a book to be honest. A bunch of cool ideas, characters that appear bad-ass but then turn out to exist only in order to progress the plot, pages and pages and pages of info-dumping. At one point the Librarian is info-dumping to Hiro, and at another point Hiro is info-dumping to Uncle Enzo and others ... and the two characters sound identical.

I would love to see someone take this world and write a smaller, more human, story set in it.

A gripping read, despite having seen the show and thus knowing the ending.