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the_magpie_reader 's review for:
Nine Lives
by Peter Swanson
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel for an honest review. It has been published in March 2022.
"Nine Lives" by Peter Swanson didn't work for me, because there were too many POVs, too many characters to follow, and not enough time to get attached to any of them. I couldn't even remember their names, let alone care whether they lived or died.
It didn't help that all the characters - from the FBI agent in her thirties to the friendly village wino in his seventies - all spoke with the same voice.
The pacing is way too slow to keep the reader's attention piqued, and besides, the big reveal is offered on a silver platter at two-thirds of the book for some reason, making everything that follows pretty much irrelevant and uninteresting. After that, the reading becomes tedious, because you have already figured it out (and you don't care much for the way-too-large cast of underdeveloped characters).
The killer's secret plan, when it is revealed, makes so little sense that it could only be found inside a book. There are so many plotholes (why does the killer only put his plan in motion after all those years? Why does he go after the *wrong* generation of culprits?) Some justifications is offered on-page for each of these plotholes, but those are lame, extremely convoluted explanations, that add little credibility to the plot. My guess is the real reason behind so many weird plot choices is "Just because the author wanted to add one more degree of complication to his novel".
On top of that, there's no real investigation: the FBI agents in charge of the case don't really discover clues or use logical reasoning, they just magically guess new elements, and somehow they always get it right, even when they have so few clues to go by that no real-life detective could ever guess correctly. Every single one of their "deductions from thin air" tastes of deus ex machina.
Definitely not for me.
"Nine Lives" by Peter Swanson didn't work for me, because there were too many POVs, too many characters to follow, and not enough time to get attached to any of them. I couldn't even remember their names, let alone care whether they lived or died.
It didn't help that all the characters - from the FBI agent in her thirties to the friendly village wino in his seventies - all spoke with the same voice.
The pacing is way too slow to keep the reader's attention piqued, and besides, the big reveal is offered on a silver platter at two-thirds of the book for some reason, making everything that follows pretty much irrelevant and uninteresting. After that, the reading becomes tedious, because you have already figured it out (and you don't care much for the way-too-large cast of underdeveloped characters).
The killer's secret plan, when it is revealed, makes so little sense that it could only be found inside a book. There are so many plotholes (why does the killer only put his plan in motion after all those years? Why does he go after the *wrong* generation of culprits?) Some justifications is offered on-page for each of these plotholes, but those are lame, extremely convoluted explanations, that add little credibility to the plot. My guess is the real reason behind so many weird plot choices is "Just because the author wanted to add one more degree of complication to his novel".
On top of that, there's no real investigation: the FBI agents in charge of the case don't really discover clues or use logical reasoning, they just magically guess new elements, and somehow they always get it right, even when they have so few clues to go by that no real-life detective could ever guess correctly. Every single one of their "deductions from thin air" tastes of deus ex machina.
Definitely not for me.