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ajmarquis 's review for:
The Strangler Vine
by M.J. Carter
The Strangler Vine is a book I became more enchanted with the further I read.
"An age of imperialism white fellow spends time among the natives and finds respect for their culture," is not a genre that gets me excited in general, but Strangler Vine distinguishes itself in several ways from the rest. The protagonist remains realistically stubborn and set in his ways, the setting is seemingly exhaustively researched, and it stays well away from offensive noble savage/magical negro sorts of tropes.
So satisfying are the locales through which the protagonist travels that I thought I wasn't much invested in the main mystery. But the finale is a combination of pulp adventure and Sherlock Holmes denouement. There's a decisive clash of gun and swordplay before the protagonist's cleverer friend explains the great mystery. There are developments that are easy to foresee and subtler twists that would take a more careful reader than I to predict.
I realize I've described the book mostly in terms of other books, but I don't think that it doesn't have a unique hook is a strike against it. Well written and executed mysteries don't grow on trees, so I'd suggest anybody interested should pick it up.
"An age of imperialism white fellow spends time among the natives and finds respect for their culture," is not a genre that gets me excited in general, but Strangler Vine distinguishes itself in several ways from the rest. The protagonist remains realistically stubborn and set in his ways, the setting is seemingly exhaustively researched, and it stays well away from offensive noble savage/magical negro sorts of tropes.
So satisfying are the locales through which the protagonist travels that I thought I wasn't much invested in the main mystery. But the finale is a combination of pulp adventure and Sherlock Holmes denouement. There's a decisive clash of gun and swordplay before the protagonist's cleverer friend explains the great mystery. There are developments that are easy to foresee and subtler twists that would take a more careful reader than I to predict.
I realize I've described the book mostly in terms of other books, but I don't think that it doesn't have a unique hook is a strike against it. Well written and executed mysteries don't grow on trees, so I'd suggest anybody interested should pick it up.