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A review by ee_em_em_aye
The Man from Primrose Lane: A Novel by James Renner
4.0
The Text Publishing cover of The Man from Primrose Lane runs the line “PROMISE: You will have never read anything like this before.”
“That’s the case for every book you’ve never read,” points out my husband; and he’s right – but don’t let the marketing put you off this part crime novel, part sci-fi work that’s an incredibly enjoyable read… as long as you’re aware that it’s going to get wacko at about page 250.
The Man from Primrose Lane will hook you from the first sentence – it’s well written; descriptive without being flowery, imaginative while taking the reader along for the ride, and the kind of book that will make you regret having a job because you’ll want to sit reading all day.
I found the twists and turns of the plot truly surprising (even before it got wacko) and the characters both believable and thoroughly enjoyable to read.
The Man from Primrose Lane came across as a good old-fashioned thriller for the start – a real whodunnit that kept me guessing throughout. The writing was so real as to be nauseating in one scene where the protagonist meets with a practicing child sex offender. What made the novel so good in the early part of it was that it wasn’t sensationalised.
The crime scenes and the events surrounding them were factually descriptive and the detective work sedate enough to be believable rather than exploded into a quick wrap-up of unbelievable coincidences that we’ve come to expect from crime stories (thanks CSI).
This was a four star read for me; what I really needed this book to have was a decent blurb on the cover, because without it I found the schism where a dystopian future becomes woven in with the gumshoe-esque crime thriller more disruptive than the author probably intended.
The heavy labouring of the scientific detail (the story even says at one point “yeah I know science blah blah blah”) was also off-putting but I guess necessary I imagine to deal with pedant readers who I probably love to point out in certain science-based scenarios what is and isn’t a possibility.
I should have – and I recommend you do this if you’re not used to reading sci-fi – given myself an hour or two to commit to reading my way right through the introduction of the sci-fi elements so I could more easily follow along. I found my reading became laboured and somewhat less enjoyable for about thirty pages as I grappled with some of the mind-benders in this novel.
However, as I came to grips with major plot twists and confirmed once again in my own mind whose story I was reading, The Man from Primrose Lane became enjoyable again. And I’m even pretty confident that I know who killed The Man from Primrose Lane … I think.
The Man from Primrose Lane is at once a thoroughly enjoyable and challenging read, which will keep you thinking and questioning what you know well beyond finishing the book. It’s the kind of book you’ll want to read again as soon as you finish.
“That’s the case for every book you’ve never read,” points out my husband; and he’s right – but don’t let the marketing put you off this part crime novel, part sci-fi work that’s an incredibly enjoyable read… as long as you’re aware that it’s going to get wacko at about page 250.
The Man from Primrose Lane will hook you from the first sentence – it’s well written; descriptive without being flowery, imaginative while taking the reader along for the ride, and the kind of book that will make you regret having a job because you’ll want to sit reading all day.
I found the twists and turns of the plot truly surprising (even before it got wacko) and the characters both believable and thoroughly enjoyable to read.
The Man from Primrose Lane came across as a good old-fashioned thriller for the start – a real whodunnit that kept me guessing throughout. The writing was so real as to be nauseating in one scene where the protagonist meets with a practicing child sex offender. What made the novel so good in the early part of it was that it wasn’t sensationalised.
The crime scenes and the events surrounding them were factually descriptive and the detective work sedate enough to be believable rather than exploded into a quick wrap-up of unbelievable coincidences that we’ve come to expect from crime stories (thanks CSI).
This was a four star read for me; what I really needed this book to have was a decent blurb on the cover, because without it I found the schism where a dystopian future becomes woven in with the gumshoe-esque crime thriller more disruptive than the author probably intended.
The heavy labouring of the scientific detail (the story even says at one point “yeah I know science blah blah blah”) was also off-putting but I guess necessary I imagine to deal with pedant readers who I probably love to point out in certain science-based scenarios what is and isn’t a possibility.
I should have – and I recommend you do this if you’re not used to reading sci-fi – given myself an hour or two to commit to reading my way right through the introduction of the sci-fi elements so I could more easily follow along. I found my reading became laboured and somewhat less enjoyable for about thirty pages as I grappled with some of the mind-benders in this novel.
However, as I came to grips with major plot twists and confirmed once again in my own mind whose story I was reading, The Man from Primrose Lane became enjoyable again. And I’m even pretty confident that I know who killed The Man from Primrose Lane … I think.
The Man from Primrose Lane is at once a thoroughly enjoyable and challenging read, which will keep you thinking and questioning what you know well beyond finishing the book. It’s the kind of book you’ll want to read again as soon as you finish.