Tag Archives: book review

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (2011) – BR00226 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
July 8 2023

Plot or Premise

A new police officer in London is about to get a dull desk job when his career gets a boost — he meets a ghost who witnessed a murder.

What I Liked

Originally called Midnight Riot, the book focuses on Peter Grant who is about to get his first assignment as a police constable in London. When he meets a ghost who witnessed a bizarre murder that involved a beheading, he’s not sure if he’s going crazy or has just been handed a career opportunity. Much of the book is about him learning about magic being real, and there are lots of fun cultural cross-references to other magical books or shows. In Harry Potter land, he’s a Muggle who just got his letter for Hogwarts, except the training ground is a division in the police force made up of one Inspector who investigates the “funny” cases. Called The Folly, apparently they have been policing for years, but there isn’t much happening, so they have an arrangement with magical folks to have one wizard on the payroll. Now two, as Peter joins him.

I love the efficient leaps in explanations that magic is real and how it works. Rather than going into really long boring backstory, they might say, “Hey, some of the magical folk would like a Ministry of Magic”. Short, pointed cross-reference, and the story moves along. I was fascinated in book 1 of the series with the focus on how all the rivers are goddesses and minor goddesses, and how the stronger ones can use glamour to compel the weak-minded to do their bidding. Jedi mind tricks without the midi-chlorians. And it is the world-building that drives the beauty of the first book more so than the mystery.

What I Didn’t Like

There are two scenes in the book that are a little out of character with the rest of the book. One is a huge elongated action scene involving an opera company, a pretty broad swath of people being controlled, etc. All of it way beyond what the “magical antagonist” should be capable of doing. It reads almost like satire or spoof at that point, something more akin to Douglas Adams than JK Rowling. The second scene is the near finale that suddenly has Peter pursuing a suspect through magical happenings that also have not really been party to the story up to that point. Almost as if Hans Gruber in Die Hard was falling to his death and suddenly had the ability to sprout wings. I don’t want to spoil things any more than that, but it’s almost like, “Oh, I forgot to mention I can do this.” It detracts a bit from the amazing world that has been built.

The Bottom Line

Great opener, but a little uneven

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming by Mike Brown (2010) – BR00225 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
July 7 2023

Plot or Premise

Back in 2006, the International Astronomical Union decided to create a definition of a planet, one which demoted Pluto from “planet” to merely a “dwarf planet”. Dr. Mike Brown had found objects beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt that were as big as Pluto, and astronomers were revisiting the definition of a planet — if Pluto was “in” scope, then the new object (or objects) would be planets too; if Pluto was “out”, then so were the new planets. Dr. Brown’s findings helped drive the need for a new definition.

What I Liked

I like the book for two reasons. First and foremost, it is highly engaging. It is written in plain-language with details about his personal life and other events going on at the time he was spending enormous amounts of time going back and forth between images and clicking a mouse “no”. Second, Dr. Brown makes it pretty clear early on that he did not create or change the definition, but rather that his work helped inform and nudge the decision-makers of the IAU when it was time to make a decision. It was an interesting element to see him, the potential discoverer of what would have been the 10th planet, saying “no”, what he found and by extension then Pluto, should not be planets. I also enjoyed seeing some limited excerpts of the interplay with the Communications departments and a somewhat cynical yet likely accurate view of journalism and scientific discovery.

What I Didn’t Like

I was not particularly persuaded by the arguments put forth why all the other objects that were smaller than Pluto should be elevated to be on the same status, nor that Planet X (or its successors) shouldn’t be planets too. At one point, he uses a metaphor of an alien visiting our galaxy and seeing the big 4 planets first — and thus that is the definition of a planet, aka size. It undercuts the entire argument in my view. And it’s why I took a point off. Of the 200 other possible items in the list that “could” be planets, few have sufficient mass to be rounded nor have their own satellites.

The Bottom Line

My solar system still includes Pluto but it was a fun read.

The Lacey Confession by Richard Greener (2006) – BR00224 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
May 22 2023

Plot or Premise

When a rich and powerful man dies, leaving behind a lengthy and vengeful document of his life, many powerful forces move to capture the document before the document can be revealed to the public.

What I Liked

Whereas the first book read almost like a John Grisham novel, this second one seems like more of a Jeffrey Archer saga across the ages. The Lacey Confession is a document best kept hidden, or so many think. But the terms of his will are quite specific. On the fourth day after his death, it is to be released. Including details about major events of the 20th Century, including the assassination of JFK. While the story could be historical, or more like the Da Vinci Code, Greener roots the story in a young Foreign Service Officer who is the one who receives the document. Some want to protect him, and one hires Walter Sherman, aka The Locator aka The Finder, to hunt him down and find a safe place to keep him hidden. An assassin with pluck and a mysterious powerful CIA fixer are great main characters in the story.

What I Didn’t Like

There are two giant plot holes in the storyline and chronology of events. In the first instance, a lawyer representing Lacey reveals to the Foreign Service Officer that he has the document and gives it to him. Except he wouldn’t. He needed it in order to honour his client’s wishes, as he has for many years. He expects to be “thwarted” in his plans, and that he won’t be allowed to release the Confession, but it makes no sense he gives up the only copy to the random US FSO who shows at his office. Equally, at the end, the person who ends up with the document has it for six to eight weeks while Walter is otherwise engaged. Yet he apparently does NOTHING with the document. He doesn’t act on its contents, he doesn’t tell his partner for whom he is doing all of it, nada. Everything stands still and waits for Walter to be back in the game. The first is a mere plot device, not egregious, while the second is ridiculous and makes no sense whatsoever. It detracts enough from the story to knock it down a star.

The Bottom Line

The best in the series, but alas, there are no more

The Knowland Retribution by Richard Greener (2004) – BR00223 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
May 14 2023

Plot or Premise

Walter Sherman has one unique skill. He can find anything that someone is searching for, which, most of the time, is a person. His nickname is the Locator, which he earned in Vietnam. Now he earns a living doing 5-10 jobs a year when people come to him asking him to find someone. In this first book in the series, a bunch of suits want him to find whoever is killing off the business people who were involved in a tainted meat scandal.

What I Liked

The premise is unique. While lots of series have private investigators who take on cases, including missing person cases, or series with police detectives hunting a serial killer, Walter isn’t any of these things. He only works by referral from someone that he has done work for in the past; he doesn’t advertise, he has no office or website, etc. Finding an anonymous killer? Not something he normally does. But the money is too good to say no, and it seems like the killer is worth catching.

The book series was made into a short-lived TV show (The Finder), with a number of significant changes — they made it that he was injured in Iraq or Afghanistan and can now find things, he’s not living in the US Virgin Islands, but somewhere in Florida, there’s an on-again/off-again love interest who is also a US Marshal, etc.

The business side of the story is pretty well-done, although a couple of the “bad” business guys are a little bit of a cliché. Nevertheless, it has almost an early John Grisham feel to it in places. And the bar near his home, Billy’s bar, with Billy and Ike as his two best friends, is really well done.

What I Didn’t Like

While Walter doesn’t know the identity of the killer, the reader does. And it takes some of the mystery out. Walter is barely present for the first 20% of the book, so it’s pretty heavy on an exposition of additional characters. Plus, while one of the main characters starts to identify with the killer’s sense of “justice,” and you are meant to see the callousness of the original, the vicious deaths that are delivered are only mildly explained. I never felt any sympathy for the killer, and the ending is questionable. There’s also no explanation of how he knows everything he does or how he found it all out; he just shows up, kills someone, and moves on. There’s only one scene where it shows him “stalking” someone, and even that is relatively bland.

However, I think my biggest objections are a love interest that we are told is all about passion but doesn’t seem to really drive any chemistry except in a scene or two, and the original “hook” that gets Walter involved is glossed over. The reader knows they are scummy people, but Walter’s reasons to help are murky at best. Later he reacts as if he was betrayed, but most of what they told him was relatively true — they just didn’t tell him the whole story, and despite being an ace interrogator, he seems surprised to learn other details they hid from him. Yet the story moves along at a good clip, so while I would be tempted to drop it to 3 out of 5, the pace bumps it back to 4.

The Bottom Line

Come for the Locator…who eventually joins the story

McNally’s Luck by Lawrence Sanders (1992) – BR00222 (R2023) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
May 8 2023

Plot or Premise

What starts as a cat-napping morphs into poison letters, threats and murder.

What I Liked

There are some decent psychological elements, albeit not well-developed, and a wide cast of characters … a grieving husband vs. a trophy wife who doesn’t care about the cat; a poor poet with a rich wife; and a gang of bunko artists ripping people off through astrology. The police partner has a larger role, including saving Archy’s life near the end.

What I Didn’t Like

The trophy wife and rich husband are complete caricatures with virtually no role in the case(s). They spend time talking about a specific model of word processor as the big clue to see who’s involved, and it really doesn’t stand up well 30 years later. Add in a woman “done wrong by a man” whom Archy gets to use as a playmate only to find out she’s turned lesbian overnight and a showdown that reads like a bad action scene from a ’70s TV show, and it isn’t that great a read. However, what bothered me most is that there is a GIANT clue that both McNally and his dad miss, it’s completely obvious to the reader, and it cracks the case wide open. Yet despite being glaringly obvious. Archy has to re-enact it to explain it to his father and the police detective, both of whom are amazed at his deductive skills. Sigh.

The Bottom Line

Love Archy, but not the best outing in the series