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A review by mikedeab63
Misery Bay by Steve Hamilton
4.0
This is like slipping on an old pair of sneakers. Hamilton has done such a nice job of deep characterization in the previous seven books that he needs to waste little time in placing the pieces on his board, so to speak. Not that he rests of stereotypes of cardboard characters. He puts the series structure and the past character relationships to good use in turning on of the key adversarial relationships on its head here, pitting McKnight and Maven on the same side. It works really well at putting the characters in uncomfortable places and seeing how they react.
The plot itself is functional enough, but feels a bit forced. We get interspersed chapters from the antagonist POV, not unusual in crime fiction, but not my favorite technique and it rarely lends much here other than to verify that he's crazy and given we see the aftermath of his crimes, there was little doubt of that.
If this is your first Hamilton, you might wonder about the raves this series has garnered to date. I think this is mainly due to the fact that after some previous books that really beat up his protagonist, this one less directly affects McKnight. He pushes events forward with his usual stubborn nature, but the personal stakes are lacking for him.
Still, like other long running series, by this point, you're likely reading to spend time with old friends and watch relationships grow and change. On this point, this book succeeds.
The plot itself is functional enough, but feels a bit forced. We get interspersed chapters from the antagonist POV, not unusual in crime fiction, but not my favorite technique and it rarely lends much here other than to verify that he's crazy and given we see the aftermath of his crimes, there was little doubt of that.
If this is your first Hamilton, you might wonder about the raves this series has garnered to date. I think this is mainly due to the fact that after some previous books that really beat up his protagonist, this one less directly affects McKnight. He pushes events forward with his usual stubborn nature, but the personal stakes are lacking for him.
Still, like other long running series, by this point, you're likely reading to spend time with old friends and watch relationships grow and change. On this point, this book succeeds.