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flowersisbritish 's review for:
A Game of Ghosts
by John Connolly
So I just jumped right into this series at book 15 and boy oh boy was this a strange ride. You'd think I would be lost from all the recurring details, but the book goes waaaaaaaay out of its way to explain everything, both vaguely alluding and flat-out explaining character backstories. This meant the book started off pretty slow for me as it held my hand to catch me up on all the characters it expected me to have attachments for.
Also, another weird benefit of having never read any of the fourteen previous books, I thought this was going to be a dark, gritty detective story about a man solving murders done by ghosts when obviously it wasn't done by a ghost. I was expecting Scooby Doo, not supernatural, as out of the blue a bunch of crazy supernatural stuff just happens! It was a smack out of left field and I had a blast with all the silly supernatural nonsense.
But outside of that, I kinda thought the book cycled between fun and dull. There's a crime family subplot that I couldn't have cared less about and ultimately goes nowhere except to set up a future villain for a later book.
This book is a weird point to view the series at. It's a transitionary book. The actual menace of this story is small time, but the story serves to move characters around to more interesting dramatic positions for later. As a result, a lot of actions feel inconsequential with no real satisfying conclusions. Because of course not, these character's stories aren't done yet. There's another book to read. But sadly, I wasn't blown away enough by the prose, captured by the characters (I will admit though, Parker is a fun detective character even if he feels too samey to others), or wowed at the greater dark forces at work to pick up this series at another spot unless it's by accident again.
Also, another weird benefit of having never read any of the fourteen previous books, I thought this was going to be a dark, gritty detective story about a man solving murders done by ghosts when obviously it wasn't done by a ghost. I was expecting Scooby Doo, not supernatural, as out of the blue a bunch of crazy supernatural stuff just happens! It was a smack out of left field and I had a blast with all the silly supernatural nonsense.
But outside of that, I kinda thought the book cycled between fun and dull. There's a crime family subplot that I couldn't have cared less about and ultimately goes nowhere except to set up a future villain for a later book.
This book is a weird point to view the series at. It's a transitionary book. The actual menace of this story is small time, but the story serves to move characters around to more interesting dramatic positions for later. As a result, a lot of actions feel inconsequential with no real satisfying conclusions. Because of course not, these character's stories aren't done yet. There's another book to read. But sadly, I wasn't blown away enough by the prose, captured by the characters (I will admit though, Parker is a fun detective character even if he feels too samey to others), or wowed at the greater dark forces at work to pick up this series at another spot unless it's by accident again.