Scan barcode
A review by robinwalter
Darkling Death by Francis Vivian
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
Right on the opening page of this final Inspector Knollis mystery, brother Ignatius quotes Oupenski and Lahsen, two philosophers I'd never heard of. I should have taken that as a warning. Thos two philosophers are referenced 10 times and 19 times respectively in the course of the book, along with references to the Vedas and Taoism. Which sums up what was so fundamentally wrong about this book for me.
To heed the advice of a sage whom I truly DO respect, the inimitable Tom Lehrer, I'm going to plagiarise from some of the reviews for this book at Amazon:
"Here the detection took a poor second place to a series of quasi-metaphysical musings on the nature of time, existence, and human relationships which I found tedious and unenlightening. "
This comment was very apt, I thought, as it was a feeling that I had picked up from the preceding, penultimate Knollis
" I had the strong feeling that the author was fed up with Knollis; a detective who started with drive and dry wit has become a cipher slotted in when necessary. "
This was one of the biggest issues I had with the story. Either the author had just ingested the works of the philsophers quoted ad nauseam and wanted to share his new found "enlightenment" with his readers, or he was fed up with Knollis and wanted to kill him off by burying him in a mound of metaphysical merde.
Several of the Amazon reviews commented that the identity of the murderer was obvious, but I have to confess that I didn't work it out. The reason is related to this statement from an Amazon review, a statement that I utterly disagree with
" This is one of those really satisfying mysteries, where the people you feel should die, do die, "
The "people I felt should die" did NOT, and that was why I didn't solve the whodunnit.
I was too distracted by hoping for the murder of the utterly unlikeable protagonist.
Grayson was a masochistic altruist who thought it nobler in the mind to suffer the shipwreck of his marriage and family than abandon a friend when a business venture failed. His ENDLESS spouting of philosophy didn't preclude him from being quick to resort to physical violence and to consider himself above the law. After what felt like a geological epoch of his self-aggrandising and self-obsessed musings on philosophy and on how the world in general, and his wife (whom he valued less than his friend) had done him wrong, I kept hoping for him to make his quietus before he finally pushed me to make mine.
In summary I finished this book in deference to the enjoyment I had reading the rest of the series, but would not recommend this book to anyone, unless I knew them to fond of interminable, pretentious overblown philosophical ramblings wrapped around a 10 page mystery short.
In my haste to be shot of this book, I omitted something from this review: For mysteries where characters muse philosophically in more manageable doses, I recommend Ellis Peters' Felse series
To heed the advice of a sage whom I truly DO respect, the inimitable Tom Lehrer, I'm going to plagiarise from some of the reviews for this book at Amazon:
"Here the detection took a poor second place to a series of quasi-metaphysical musings on the nature of time, existence, and human relationships which I found tedious and unenlightening. "
This comment was very apt, I thought, as it was a feeling that I had picked up from the preceding, penultimate Knollis
" I had the strong feeling that the author was fed up with Knollis; a detective who started with drive and dry wit has become a cipher slotted in when necessary. "
This was one of the biggest issues I had with the story. Either the author had just ingested the works of the philsophers quoted ad nauseam and wanted to share his new found "enlightenment" with his readers, or he was fed up with Knollis and wanted to kill him off by burying him in a mound of metaphysical merde.
Several of the Amazon reviews commented that the identity of the murderer was obvious, but I have to confess that I didn't work it out. The reason is related to this statement from an Amazon review, a statement that I utterly disagree with
" This is one of those really satisfying mysteries, where the people you feel should die, do die, "
The "people I felt should die" did NOT, and that was why I didn't solve the whodunnit.
I was too distracted by hoping for the murder of the utterly unlikeable protagonist.
Grayson was a masochistic altruist who thought it nobler in the mind to suffer the shipwreck of his marriage and family than abandon a friend when a business venture failed. His ENDLESS spouting of philosophy didn't preclude him from being quick to resort to physical violence and to consider himself above the law. After what felt like a geological epoch of his self-aggrandising and self-obsessed musings on philosophy and on how the world in general, and his wife (whom he valued less than his friend) had done him wrong, I kept hoping for him to make his quietus before he finally pushed me to make mine.
In summary I finished this book in deference to the enjoyment I had reading the rest of the series, but would not recommend this book to anyone, unless I knew them to fond of interminable, pretentious overblown philosophical ramblings wrapped around a 10 page mystery short.
In my haste to be shot of this book, I omitted something from this review: For mysteries where characters muse philosophically in more manageable doses, I recommend Ellis Peters' Felse series