Reviews

The Big O by Declan Burke

sandin954's review

3.0

Crime caper set in Ireland with numerous point of view characters, dark humor, and a twisty plot. I did like the book for the most part and appreciated that it was under 300 pages but felt the author put too much emphasis on style over substance.

tombradleyjr's review against another edition

4.0

This novel bristles with stripped-down, sharp, muscular, just-the-facts-ma'am prose -- which is just fine by me.

Although I found the ultra-short, POV-driven, character-titled chapters confusing (to a point), the characters themselves came off as sympathetic and identifiable, with the possible exception of Rossi...and even he wasn't ALL bad; just human.

My one quibble is the parenthetical subtitle "a screwball noir," as I believe dubbing it "screwball" does it a disservice. It reads more like what Elmore Leonard (or even James Ellroy) would write if he were transplanted from Detroit to the Emerald Isle.

Nicely done. Now I need to read more of Declan Burke's work.

fionntan's review

2.0

Pretty mediocre. I quite like a straight up crime book and 2-dimensional characters if it hits all the other points like snappy dialogue, tension and an intricate plot. This didn't really have any of those. There's only a drive to the plot 50 pages before the end wheras the 230 pages leading up to that have people knocking around, talking tough but actually doing sweet F.A.

Read another book of his, was loads of fun. This was not.