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siria 's review for:
Last Rituals
by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
Mediocre at best. The murder mystery is fairly by the numbers, with the identity of the murderer apparent from fairly early on and little suspense present to enliven the rest of the book. The main character, Thora Gudmundsdottir, is supposed to be a mostly cheerful single mother who works as a lawyer, but her character is inconsistently drawn, her competence as a lawyer varies wildly according to plot demands, and her witty banter is nowhere near so amusing as the author seems to think—especially when said banter comes in the form of nasty remarks about fat people.
The worst element of the book for me, however, was supposedly its main selling point (the book's subtitle is A Tale of Secret Symbols, Medieval Witchcraft and Modern Murder). I wouldn't be surprised if Yrsa Sigurðardóttir had done her research on medieval history and on modern academia by skimming Wikipedia articles—that part of the novel was sometimes inaccurate and frequently fanciful, and showed absolutely no knowledge of how academia works or what medieval historians work on. I blinked in surprise at how many academics professed to be creeped out at the thoughts of one of their number studying witchcraft—the author is clearly unfamiliar with a whole field in gender studies. I'm not inclined to seek out the rest of the series.
The worst element of the book for me, however, was supposedly its main selling point (the book's subtitle is A Tale of Secret Symbols, Medieval Witchcraft and Modern Murder). I wouldn't be surprised if Yrsa Sigurðardóttir had done her research on medieval history and on modern academia by skimming Wikipedia articles—that part of the novel was sometimes inaccurate and frequently fanciful, and showed absolutely no knowledge of how academia works or what medieval historians work on. I blinked in surprise at how many academics professed to be creeped out at the thoughts of one of their number studying witchcraft—the author is clearly unfamiliar with a whole field in gender studies. I'm not inclined to seek out the rest of the series.