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A review by rogue_runner
Eternal by Craig Russell
2.0
Okay, this book. It was good, but I think my taste in crime fiction has been ruined by Chris Carter- especially when I only read his previous book like, 2 weeks ago. So, this probably should rank higher than it actually does for me.
First off, I don't think this is the first book of this author/series/whatever. In fact, I am pretty 100% certain it's not. This was okay; things got explained, there weren't any parts of the plot which I was all "wtf is happening, I must have missed something". However, there's a couple of pretty obvious plot points that are carried on from the previous couple of books that, felt like I was missing something. But (and this was my major issue), although there was plot development and movement throughout the book, nothing really happened.
Let me explain, because that sounds weird in a sentence on its own. This book had plenty of plot, it plodded along and came to a conclusion, there were events- but from one event to another (Death A, Death B, etc), there was an awful lot of slowness. Investigations into the murders didn't get anywhere; investigations were mentioned, but there was no development or clues or movements. So a clue was identified as a clue, but nothing ever really came of that. The plot didn't go anywhere until, BOOM! Next murder. And so on.
This wasn't helped by the fact that there were a lot of characters. This made it kinda hard for me to follow, especially when none of them had particular personalities; the only one that really stuck in my head was Maria. The same problem was with the setting; it was supposed to be Hamburg, but I got absolutely no hint of this past the 'generic city setting with streets, cyclists and pedestrians around'. There was nothing really to settle it in Hamburg, nothing to distinguish it from anywhere else. It left me with little taste of the characters or setting. It was as if the author had picked a city that sounded good, but hadn't done any research or visited to actually capture the flavour of the place.
It was a good premise, but kinda let down by the colourlessness of the writing.
First off, I don't think this is the first book of this author/series/whatever. In fact, I am pretty 100% certain it's not. This was okay; things got explained, there weren't any parts of the plot which I was all "wtf is happening, I must have missed something". However, there's a couple of pretty obvious plot points that are carried on from the previous couple of books that, felt like I was missing something. But (and this was my major issue), although there was plot development and movement throughout the book, nothing really happened.
Let me explain, because that sounds weird in a sentence on its own. This book had plenty of plot, it plodded along and came to a conclusion, there were events- but from one event to another (Death A, Death B, etc), there was an awful lot of slowness. Investigations into the murders didn't get anywhere; investigations were mentioned, but there was no development or clues or movements. So a clue
Spoiler
a red hairThis wasn't helped by the fact that there were a lot of characters. This made it kinda hard for me to follow, especially when none of them had particular personalities; the only one that really stuck in my head was Maria. The same problem was with the setting; it was supposed to be Hamburg, but I got absolutely no hint of this past the 'generic city setting with streets, cyclists and pedestrians around'. There was nothing really to settle it in Hamburg, nothing to distinguish it from anywhere else. It left me with little taste of the characters or setting. It was as if the author had picked a city that sounded good, but hadn't done any research or visited to actually capture the flavour of the place.
It was a good premise, but kinda let down by the colourlessness of the writing.