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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
Anthony Horowitz is one of those authors that you get soooo excited when you see they have a new book coming out because you know you will love it!! Always fresh, always interesting - keep them coming. Five stars because that's as high as it lets me rate :)
It’s a solid mystery but much like the first I can’t shake the sublimated homophobia…really sours a lot of it, especially with how this one shakes out.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
[no spoilers] apologies in advance—this review will not be as put together as my past ones
Oh my god, when I tell you the only reason I read this book in its entirety is because I was stuck on a train with nothing to do for 8 hours, believe me. This book was unique in the sense that it was a book inside of a book; yes by reading this, you are actually reading TWO books (good idea, bad execution). The connections between the characters in the mini-book and those in the main plot added another layer of complexity that felt excessive. Despite all this convoluted drama, I still managed to solve the mystery before the end (bad bc what was all the extra fluff for then?!?!) The final 20 pages were satisfying, but they couldn’t compensate for the tedious 100 pages in the middle that could have easily been omitted. Overall, don’t read unless you like unbearable complexity or are trying to work on increasing your patience.
Oh my god, when I tell you the only reason I read this book in its entirety is because I was stuck on a train with nothing to do for 8 hours, believe me. This book was unique in the sense that it was a book inside of a book; yes by reading this, you are actually reading TWO books (good idea, bad execution). The connections between the characters in the mini-book and those in the main plot added another layer of complexity that felt excessive. Despite all this convoluted drama, I still managed to solve the mystery before the end (bad bc what was all the extra fluff for then?!?!) The final 20 pages were satisfying, but they couldn’t compensate for the tedious 100 pages in the middle that could have easily been omitted. Overall, don’t read unless you like unbearable complexity or are trying to work on increasing your patience.
A nice sequel to Magpie Murders which features yet again the dual mysteries of an Atticus Pünd Novel which imitates a real life crime that nees to be solved by our protagonist Susan Ryeland.
The Atticus Pünd part still has Hercule Poirot vibes do it (not that there's anything wrong with that) and there's enough red herrings to make you wonder until the end whodunnit? The book is fairly clued so you can figure everything out before our heroes if you know how to pick 'em up and make sense of them. Obviously I didn't *lol*
Still, a highly engaging quick read to be recommended especially if you've already read the first entry in the series. I seriously wouldn't mind if Anthony Horowitz would write anothe sequel to this series.
The Atticus Pünd part still has Hercule Poirot vibes do it (not that there's anything wrong with that) and there's enough red herrings to make you wonder until the end whodunnit? The book is fairly clued so you can figure everything out before our heroes if you know how to pick 'em up and make sense of them. Obviously I didn't *lol*
Still, a highly engaging quick read to be recommended especially if you've already read the first entry in the series. I seriously wouldn't mind if Anthony Horowitz would write anothe sequel to this series.
I have a mixed experience with AH, I mostly liked the first two books of his I read, Magpie Murders and House of Silk, and mostly didn't like the next two, the Hawthorne mysteries. So I had no great expectations for this, but it did manage to keep my interest (and it's very long) I did think both the "outer" and "inner" mysteries were tied up okay, but the outer story ended with a cheat...Susan suddenly out of the blue correctly figures out every tiny detail of what occurred while sitting in a pub. And to make sure we knew WHY things happened the way they did the killer then conveniently writes a very long letter explaining it, which the killer would never have done, and some of that was a little hard to swallow. So it landed with a bit of a thud. But I do think I got my entertainment value out of it.
I usually am a big fan of Anthony Horowitz, but this book just dragged for me. A little disappointing.
This wasn’t as good as the first one. I give it a 2.5.
Creative and fun, but a disappointing payoff, including tedious moral panic and predictable but unrealistic revelations conveyed in a letter.