Michael Best
More a collection of short stories than a novel. Having no nautical knowledge, I had to seek out a decent online diagram of a 3 masted frigate in order to gain some understanding of the many terms used.
I really enjoyed this Robert Harris thriller.
I really felt I had been taken back to war-torn Britain.
A difficult one to rate for me - the writing was excellent but I can't say I liked the book because I have just spent 85 years in the life of someone I really did not like very much.
Oh dear, a military SF - I should have read the blurb!
I finished it, but I cannot say I enjoyed it much. There was certainly lots of gore and evisceration.
Also, some strange choice of verb tenses and the uncorrected use of “where” instead of “were”.
Reading this for the first time in 2019, what to say?
I don't mind the dryness. I don't have a problem with the story telling in a rambling recall. However, the inherent gender, social, religious and racial bigotry is difficult to stomach.
A largely enjoyable romp, but too much feeling uncertain about what is even being talked about to feel wholly involved.
A nicely written historical tale. A pleasant discovery and I will be seeking out the second in the series. My ignorance is such that I had no idea when I bought the book that the author is Patricia Finney.
A classic, but the characters and adventures seem more ‘comic book' than book 1 and the book is too long.
I can't say that any collection of short stories I have read warrants a ‘wow‘ rating, but I certainly loved reading these. All 4 stories are tragic, touching upon love, obsession, loss and suicide.
In all frankness, I have to admit to not really liking this.
Perhaps I am misreading this but, even allowing for the time in which it was written, I found it elitist, racist and misogynistic.
Less a thriller, more a deeply unsettling psychological ride in the head of a killer.
Critical reviews meant that I came to this book with high expectations. Unfortunately, for me the ‘family melodrama' style the author has chosen did not satisfy. It proved something of a chore to complete.
It was my first and, I suspect, my last Sarah Dunant novel.
It too me a while to get the rhythm of the writing but I increasingly enjoyed the book despite the terribly poorly proof-read Kindle edition I had.
Whilst I enjoyed this book, it is clearly hampered by the limited written data available and the fact that none of the key participants is alive to supplement the lacking data (what did he do all those years in New Zealand?; what did the various women in his life make of his unfaithful behaviour?). I also found the flow a bit disjointed, not helped by points being repeated in separate chapters, or a footnote telling a tale and then the main text tells the same tale.
I think it was the author's obvious fascination for (and, perhaps bewilderment of) Maurice which overcame my reservations about the book.
Apart from the unnecessary social commentary interventions by Wells, this was an enjoyable, lightly comic novel.
Probably a 3.5. It is a short book. I enjoyed it, though I already knew the tale. Something in the telling held me back from really loving the book. Certainly, I have read more engrossing telling of historical events.
An ok storyline. Some strange dialogue at times. A deeply frustrating (and unnecessary) habit of the author to throw in phrases, or even whole sentences of dialogue in Spanish and then translate them into English - presumably to remind the simple reader that we were in Spain and the characters were all speaking Spanish.
DNF.
The more I read, the more I truly disliked the central character, and reading a book which is entirely the thoughts/actions of a character I had no interest in proved too hard.
My first (only?) Chabon. I really liked the start, and occasional further sections sparked but, overall, I found it incredibly disappointing.
Not one of my favourite Wallanders. Perhaps because it centres on his daughter, Linda. However, more so because it feels like the author is just filling in a gap in the Wallander world by giving us far more information about Linda and her relationship with Kurt - not a gap I felt needed filling in this heavy handed way.
Merged review:
Not one of my favourite Wallanders. Perhaps because it centres on his daughter, Linda. However, more so because it feels like the author is just filling in a gap in the Wallander world by giving us far more information about Linda and her relationship with Kurt - not a gap I felt needed filling in this heavy handed way.
