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A review by elegantmechanic
The Retribution by Val McDermid
2.0
A huge let-down after being blown away by the writing in Fever of the Bone, and considering the significance to the series and the characters of Jacko Vance. I'm torn between 1 and 2 stars but will go with 2 because I'd rate it 2 if it was a standalone.
It took about 100 pages to really get going and yet after 400 pages still feels like half a book. The Vance plot is deeply underwhelming, being built up to be something momentous when it really isn't. That plot and the other crime subplot are both totally anticlimactic and feel like they end arbitrarily with almost a deus ex machina quality. The only plot of any interest is the Hill/Jordan relationship and that feels like a single beat in a longer story (which it is, in a sense, but there's not much here apart from one big change).
I'd taken a long break from this series before Fever of the Bone and I couldn't really remember why, perhaps this is why. I want to keep reading because I am attached to the characters (mainly from the TV version, but still) but I can only hope the next effort is better.
It took about 100 pages to really get going and yet after 400 pages still feels like half a book. The Vance plot is deeply underwhelming, being built up to be something momentous when it really isn't. That plot and the other crime subplot are both totally anticlimactic and feel like they end arbitrarily with almost a deus ex machina quality. The only plot of any interest is the Hill/Jordan relationship and that feels like a single beat in a longer story (which it is, in a sense, but there's not much here apart from one big change).
I'd taken a long break from this series before Fever of the Bone and I couldn't really remember why, perhaps this is why. I want to keep reading because I am attached to the characters (mainly from the TV version, but still) but I can only hope the next effort is better.