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A review by nicovreeland
The Peacekeeper by B.L. Blanchard
2.0
Setting: 5/5
Writing style: 3.5/5
Characters 3/5
Mystery: 4/5
Solution to mystery: 0/5
I was really intrigued by the alternate history setting--a world in which Native Americans retained control of America. The mystery plot took a long time to get going, but was cooking along pretty well by the midpoint. Unfortunately, the solution is predictable and the explanation of it is extremely unsatisfying.
FULL SPOILERS AHEAD
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The MC's mother was murdered 20 years ago by his father, and his sister was badly traumatized by her death. When the novel opens, the MC's godmother is murdered, and evidence suggests that it's the same killer as his mother, but that's impossible because his father has been in jail for 20 years. When the MC goes to ask his father why he confessed to a crime he didn't commit and went to jail for 20 years, his father says nothing and then later hangs himself in his cell.
Not a bad mystery, but the progression is slow and the twists are few and far between (that previous paragraph summarizes all of the plot beats before the final revelation). The emphasis throughout the first half of the book is on the setting, which is the most interesting part, but not interesting enough to sustain the entire book.
The mystery starts to crumble because there are only a handful of named characters who could have committed the crime, but they cross off all of them except the MC's traumatized sister, who does indeed turn out to be the killer.
Here's everything the sister did: she killed her mother (at 12 years old), blackmailed her father to make him confess and sent him to jail for 20 years (this doesn't make any sense for him to do for a whole host of reasons), pretended to be traumatized and basically non-functional for those 20 years, ruining her brother's life in that time, and thens she killed their godmother, and is ready and willing to kill the MC, too.
WHY??? Dunno. The mother cheated on their father, but this reaction to that is like swatting a fly with a nuclear missile. The book surmises that she's possessed by an evil spirit, which in Westernized terms means she's mentally ill.
Mental illness--or evil spirit possession--is an incredibly unsatisfying reason to commit crimes in a police procedural like this because it takes away motive, one of the three pillars of investigation (motive, means, opportunity--specifically cited in this book multiple times). Additionally, in one of this type of mystery, the more outlandish the villain, the more rock-solid and relatable their motive needs to be. "Mom cheated on Dad so I ruined all our lives" is not relatable.
Too bad, I really enjoyed the setting and the grounded speculative elements.
Writing style: 3.5/5
Characters 3/5
Mystery: 4/5
Solution to mystery: 0/5
I was really intrigued by the alternate history setting--a world in which Native Americans retained control of America. The mystery plot took a long time to get going, but was cooking along pretty well by the midpoint. Unfortunately, the solution is predictable and the explanation of it is extremely unsatisfying.
FULL SPOILERS AHEAD
.
.
.
.
.
The MC's mother was murdered 20 years ago by his father, and his sister was badly traumatized by her death. When the novel opens, the MC's godmother is murdered, and evidence suggests that it's the same killer as his mother, but that's impossible because his father has been in jail for 20 years. When the MC goes to ask his father why he confessed to a crime he didn't commit and went to jail for 20 years, his father says nothing and then later hangs himself in his cell.
Not a bad mystery, but the progression is slow and the twists are few and far between (that previous paragraph summarizes all of the plot beats before the final revelation). The emphasis throughout the first half of the book is on the setting, which is the most interesting part, but not interesting enough to sustain the entire book.
The mystery starts to crumble because there are only a handful of named characters who could have committed the crime, but they cross off all of them except the MC's traumatized sister, who does indeed turn out to be the killer.
Here's everything the sister did: she killed her mother (at 12 years old), blackmailed her father to make him confess and sent him to jail for 20 years (this doesn't make any sense for him to do for a whole host of reasons), pretended to be traumatized and basically non-functional for those 20 years, ruining her brother's life in that time, and thens she killed their godmother, and is ready and willing to kill the MC, too.
WHY??? Dunno. The mother cheated on their father, but this reaction to that is like swatting a fly with a nuclear missile. The book surmises that she's possessed by an evil spirit, which in Westernized terms means she's mentally ill.
Mental illness--or evil spirit possession--is an incredibly unsatisfying reason to commit crimes in a police procedural like this because it takes away motive, one of the three pillars of investigation (motive, means, opportunity--specifically cited in this book multiple times). Additionally, in one of this type of mystery, the more outlandish the villain, the more rock-solid and relatable their motive needs to be. "Mom cheated on Dad so I ruined all our lives" is not relatable.
Too bad, I really enjoyed the setting and the grounded speculative elements.