I love reading Jan Burke's Irene Kelly mysteries (they begin with Goodnight, Irene), so when I saw her latest novel, The Messenger, at the library, I picked it up. While I was sick I read it, and even in my weakened state, I was disappointed. It's trying to be a paranormal mystery (which I didn't realize or I probably wouldn't have checked it out), but it's badly plotted and the characters are not only two-dimensional but none of them are particularly sympathetic... unless you automatically feel sympathy for folks who perform mysterious actions and then feel weak for a while. The villain is one big trunk o' evil, the hero gets his heroism from being chosen by a dog, and the heroine's strength derives partly from the fact that she's still a virgin. I found it too stupid for any more words.
I'm going to start giving my posts the title of whatever I've read, because I think it could be useful for finding things later, in addition to the author index. The biggest problem with the author index, of course, is that authors are in order of how many times I've mentioned them and then in alphabetical order by first name. Why by first name, I can't tell you.
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5 comments:
Thanks for saving me from finding/reading this book. I've been reading JB's stuff for years (and may have first recommended the books to you; or was it you to me?) but have been a bit disappointed in the last couple of offerings. Now I can just stop bothering looking for new books by her. Usually if an author runs out of good ideas for one book, new ones don't appear in subsequent books!
I've been a Jan Burke fan for awhile and knew this one had come out, but have too many on my TBR pile right now. I'm sad that you didn't like it....
Luanne, the major disappointment for me was that the characters are so sketchily drawn. The Irene Kelly mysteries have such good characters!
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