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A review by srenee213
Darling Jim by Christian Mørk
2.0
The premise intrigued me: an Irish murder mystery of sorts beginning with 3 women found dead in your average suburban home. The women are Moira and her nieces Fiona and Roisin, and the sisters look to have been kept prisoner in their aunt's house for quite some time. A young postman finds Fiona's diary, in which she claims the whole situation was caused by love for one man who was known as Darling Jim.
However, the writing of the story failed me. The blurb in the back said the author was formerly a movie writer and executive, which does explain things a bit. This is only his first novel and it feels very contrived to me. Maybe once he writes more fiction, he'll get a better feel for it. The details of the story were a little odd and the characters weren't exactly believable, especially Aunt Moira. I get that she had a difficult time with a man in the past, but does that mean, in exchange for a declaration of love, she'll overlook the fact that Jim has already slept with one of her nieces, supposedly raped the other, and was involved with thievery and murder in the past? She couldn't possibly be that desperate! And she didn't seem completely off the wall . . .
Postman Niall's quest was also not very believable to me. I can't imagine he'd be on the run just a day into entering the sisters' hometown. Does everyone really listen to an 11-year-old smart alec's allegations so quickly? The whole thing just felt silly and contrived. His talking to himself didn't help either (and made it feel even more like a very badly written, old school mystery story).
There are more unbelievable plot points (Jim's crazy brother?) but the thing that most annoyed me was the author's characterization. It felt like he wrote down each character's name on a piece of paper and then gave them two personality/appearance details that he repeated whenever he could:
Fiona= pharaohs, schoolteacher
Aoife= hippie, sleeps around
Roisin= goth, radios, lesbian
Jim= wolf, storyteller, handsome
They all felt very flat, boring, and unreal. Few people are so easily described in one or two words and for good reason. There's a lot more to a person than that.
Luckily, the intrigue of the murder mystery made up for a few of these flaws. Even if the plot and characters are very contrived, I couldn't help but be drawn in a bit to the craziness of it- murders, storytelling, prisoners and all. An okay read.
Find more book reviews at A Quick Red Fox.
However, the writing of the story failed me. The blurb in the back said the author was formerly a movie writer and executive, which does explain things a bit. This is only his first novel and it feels very contrived to me. Maybe once he writes more fiction, he'll get a better feel for it. The details of the story were a little odd and the characters weren't exactly believable, especially Aunt Moira. I get that she had a difficult time with a man in the past, but does that mean, in exchange for a declaration of love, she'll overlook the fact that Jim has already slept with one of her nieces, supposedly raped the other, and was involved with thievery and murder in the past? She couldn't possibly be that desperate! And she didn't seem completely off the wall . . .
Postman Niall's quest was also not very believable to me. I can't imagine he'd be on the run just a day into entering the sisters' hometown. Does everyone really listen to an 11-year-old smart alec's allegations so quickly? The whole thing just felt silly and contrived. His talking to himself didn't help either (and made it feel even more like a very badly written, old school mystery story).
There are more unbelievable plot points (Jim's crazy brother?) but the thing that most annoyed me was the author's characterization. It felt like he wrote down each character's name on a piece of paper and then gave them two personality/appearance details that he repeated whenever he could:
Fiona= pharaohs, schoolteacher
Aoife= hippie, sleeps around
Roisin= goth, radios, lesbian
Jim= wolf, storyteller, handsome
They all felt very flat, boring, and unreal. Few people are so easily described in one or two words and for good reason. There's a lot more to a person than that.
Luckily, the intrigue of the murder mystery made up for a few of these flaws. Even if the plot and characters are very contrived, I couldn't help but be drawn in a bit to the craziness of it- murders, storytelling, prisoners and all. An okay read.
Find more book reviews at A Quick Red Fox.