Reviews

Incinerator by Timothy Hallinan

clambook's review

3.0

I wish I liked the Simeon Grist series better. Hallinan has a ton of talent, and while I don't much care for his Poke Raferty series, I love the Junior Bender books and want to be a fanboy for Grist. The series is derivative to a degree -- noirish LA, requisite psychovillian committing unspeakable acts, dumb but loyal cop buddy, flawed PI with fetching girlfriend -- but there are some unusual elements as well, chief among them the notion that protagonist Grist is a PhD in literature who now patrols the hard streets rather than the groves of academe. The problem I've had with Incinerator and The Bone Polisher is that they don't build on the Grist character -- what he thinks, how he feels -- and, in Incinerator, he's kind of a dope. And the plot is riddled with improbabilities -- a few are okay, but the number of these are in the red zone.