Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by vimcenzo
Entanglement by Zygmunt Miloszewski
2.0
Not bad, but not great. Most of the decent things about this whodunit happen in the second half.
Two things make this a difficult book to recommend. The first is not the author's fault; indeed, it is no one's fault other than just the world's lack of awareness. The criminal justice system and just what exactly Szacki is might alienate some readers who don't quite understand what the prosecutor of a case is doing to be so deeply involved with crime scene investigation. This is what was confusing to me after living in Poland for some time, and more day-to-day life and activities might prove confusing to other readers. That's not something I'd hold against picking up the book; honestly, for the sake of broadening cultural horizons and having a look at authentic-ish Polish bureaucracy, this book does the trick. (Additionally, the translation gets a bit antiquated and awkward at points, and knowing Polish I can mentally see what was the original line and often have to admit that there's no neat way of expressing that idea, but oh well.)
Second, and something that is a fault of the author's, is how bad the characters are. My God. The story is a good one, but the characters are a series of completely uninspired tropes that were just starting to get dated and annoying in 2007 when this was published. For example, there is a lecherous cop. He is either "lecherous" or a "cop" in any of his scenes, forcing in constant references to sex in between commenting on the the job at hand. Arguably he's meant to be annoying, so what about the reporter with whom the protag is tempted to start an affair? I don't get what the appeal for Szacki is other than that she's kind of pretty which seems to be enough for him to just throw it all away. She doesn't even particularly throw herself at him, and by the end it feels like she was just a token for the villains to threaten him with, twirl their moustache and proclaim "You're gettin' too close, you better drop this case, see?!" The wife and child fulfill the role of "wife" and "child", as in the wife nags but used to be a lot more fun and the child draws drawings and has stuffed animals. The most interesting character in all this was the nagging boss, and only because of the interesting dynamic of having a male character freak out over her abusing her power to extort sexual favors from him.
And at the center of this cascade of caricatures sits Szacki, who never feels particularly sharp or interesting. The book would have you believe it's a more grounded and realistic take on cop dramas, and therefore its hero is not some sexy movie star and a savant, but an average Joe behind a desk.,
And yet it indulges in all the tropes of incessantly thinking about the case, being unsatisfied at home, wanting to start an affair, etc. When you don't follow that up with some interesting savant-ism from the guy, it's not very exciting. It's realistic, but it's not entertaining to read, like I've had to read through a banker's very mundane work shift. The book IS a mystery/thriller, and so the protagonist should be a guy who pieces things together in a way we can't or breaks the rules and gets a crucial piece of evidence. Instead, oh God, we endure entire sequences of his job that never advance the plot and are just pages-long demonstrations of "yeah my job sucks" like having to prosecute a woman who killed her husband in self-defense.
However, what is this book's saving grace is the buildup at the end, where the pieces of the mystery start falling into place and a vise starts closing in around the protagonist. Something that I wish had a bigger role was the constellation therapy, and it ultimately does, but as a gimmick I think it would have been interesting to write around and have it be the quirk of the protagonist, using it to solve cases or understand crime scenes. I like that kinda stuff, and if the book weren't so obsessed with stressing that Hollywood sucks, that it isn't just some cop show, and at one point having all the audacity in the world to declare "this isn't some detective novel", then I think we could have had some real fun with constellation therapy as a means to sniff out criminals. There are two books left in the series and I hope it comes back. The mystery itself was exciting, and the way it tied into history in an authentically Polish way was especially harrowing and sparked fear for the reader. With better characters, I would have been more afraid and the stakes would have been higher.
Overall, not the worst--it feels as though the mystery part was easy to write for Miłoszewski, but populating it with realistic people was a much harder task. I certainly hope he improves with subsequent stories.
Two things make this a difficult book to recommend. The first is not the author's fault; indeed, it is no one's fault other than just the world's lack of awareness. The criminal justice system and just what exactly Szacki is might alienate some readers who don't quite understand what the prosecutor of a case is doing to be so deeply involved with crime scene investigation. This is what was confusing to me after living in Poland for some time, and more day-to-day life and activities might prove confusing to other readers. That's not something I'd hold against picking up the book; honestly, for the sake of broadening cultural horizons and having a look at authentic-ish Polish bureaucracy, this book does the trick. (Additionally, the translation gets a bit antiquated and awkward at points, and knowing Polish I can mentally see what was the original line and often have to admit that there's no neat way of expressing that idea, but oh well.)
Second, and something that is a fault of the author's, is how bad the characters are. My God. The story is a good one, but the characters are a series of completely uninspired tropes that were just starting to get dated and annoying in 2007 when this was published. For example, there is a lecherous cop. He is either "lecherous" or a "cop" in any of his scenes, forcing in constant references to sex in between commenting on the the job at hand. Arguably he's meant to be annoying, so what about the reporter with whom the protag is tempted to start an affair? I don't get what the appeal for Szacki is other than that she's kind of pretty which seems to be enough for him to just throw it all away. She doesn't even particularly throw herself at him, and by the end it feels like she was just a token for the villains to threaten him with, twirl their moustache and proclaim "You're gettin' too close, you better drop this case, see?!" The wife and child fulfill the role of "wife" and "child", as in the wife nags but used to be a lot more fun and the child draws drawings and has stuffed animals. The most interesting character in all this was the nagging boss, and only because of the interesting dynamic of having a male character freak out over her abusing her power to extort sexual favors from him.
And at the center of this cascade of caricatures sits Szacki, who never feels particularly sharp or interesting. The book would have you believe it's a more grounded and realistic take on cop dramas, and therefore its hero is not some sexy movie star and a savant, but an average Joe behind a desk.,
And yet it indulges in all the tropes of incessantly thinking about the case, being unsatisfied at home, wanting to start an affair, etc. When you don't follow that up with some interesting savant-ism from the guy, it's not very exciting. It's realistic, but it's not entertaining to read, like I've had to read through a banker's very mundane work shift. The book IS a mystery/thriller, and so the protagonist should be a guy who pieces things together in a way we can't or breaks the rules and gets a crucial piece of evidence. Instead, oh God, we endure entire sequences of his job that never advance the plot and are just pages-long demonstrations of "yeah my job sucks" like having to prosecute a woman who killed her husband in self-defense.
However, what is this book's saving grace is the buildup at the end, where the pieces of the mystery start falling into place and a vise starts closing in around the protagonist. Something that I wish had a bigger role was the constellation therapy, and it ultimately does, but as a gimmick I think it would have been interesting to write around and have it be the quirk of the protagonist, using it to solve cases or understand crime scenes. I like that kinda stuff, and if the book weren't so obsessed with stressing that Hollywood sucks, that it isn't just some cop show, and at one point having all the audacity in the world to declare "this isn't some detective novel", then I think we could have had some real fun with constellation therapy as a means to sniff out criminals. There are two books left in the series and I hope it comes back. The mystery itself was exciting, and the way it tied into history in an authentically Polish way was especially harrowing and sparked fear for the reader. With better characters, I would have been more afraid and the stakes would have been higher.
Overall, not the worst--it feels as though the mystery part was easy to write for Miłoszewski, but populating it with realistic people was a much harder task. I certainly hope he improves with subsequent stories.