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A review by tfitoby
The Man from Primrose Lane by James Renner
4.0
As time travelly complexy as you're likely to find in what is ostensibly a popular thriller crime novel, tells a tale similar to Predestination - the recent movie adaptation of the Heinlein short story All You Zombies.
Renner grips you with an incredibly fascinating prologue and sustains the page turning readability through 450+ pages thanks to some top quality descriptive prose and an approach to revealing information that would put Quentin Tarantino to shame. For a popular thriller unit shifter that seemingly failed to shift units it's as good as I would ever expect. I wanted more noir, I wanted more science fiction but instead I got a vaguely metafictional, self referential attempt at literary true crime with a convoluted time travel plot that amazingly enough works. It really works.
The opening half (at least) is phenomenal and that I feel let down by it is as much a product of having such a strong opening and the absurdity of time travel as a concept as it is any inherent weakness in the story. I could easily have read another 500 pages of this story though.
Renner grips you with an incredibly fascinating prologue and sustains the page turning readability through 450+ pages thanks to some top quality descriptive prose and an approach to revealing information that would put Quentin Tarantino to shame. For a popular thriller unit shifter that seemingly failed to shift units it's as good as I would ever expect. I wanted more noir, I wanted more science fiction but instead I got a vaguely metafictional, self referential attempt at literary true crime with a convoluted time travel plot that amazingly enough works. It really works.
The opening half (at least) is phenomenal and that I feel let down by it is as much a product of having such a strong opening and the absurdity of time travel as a concept as it is any inherent weakness in the story. I could easily have read another 500 pages of this story though.