elvenbookworm's review
2.0
I have the dubious honor of being first to review this book with anything more than a rating, so I'll be frank. First, a summary, as the jacket blurb (on my edition, at least) wasn't particularly illuminating. As the book opens, two kidnappings have occurred. The victims are low-profiled, the cases well-publicized, the ransom demands paid in diamonds, the victims returned- and the perpetrator escapes easily. He (she?) is yet to make a mistake, and Bush is worried that the criminal will go off scot-free if he doesn't slip up soon. Bush is an investigator for a covert investigative branch of the British government, a branch that technically speaking doesn't exist. He predicts that this is just a warm-up for a third kidnapping, with a high-profile victim and an enormous ransom demand. Then, if the kidnapper is smart, he'll take his money and retire. He wants (for obvious reasons) to keep this from happening.
Elsewhere, self-proclaimed medium Madame Blanche and partner George Lumley are trying to track down a Mrs. Grace Rainbird's long-lost nephew. Predictably, there are skeletons in the closet of Rainbird's past, and perhaps she shouldn't be so eager to find this nephew...
The plot somehow contrives to be simultaneously predictable and confusing. The characters are poorly formed, unlikely, and unlikable. A number of plot elements (to name them would be to spoil the plot) simply make no logical sense, or go unexplained. And the ending is a sort of chilling coda that by rights should be a hook for the sequel, but as there is no sequel feels more like a sort of cheap ploy. It's like the author Canning wants to pass himself off as more sophisticated as the average thriller writer, and so threw in the sort of "Lady and the Tiger" ending that some judge the very pinnacle of sophistication. Taken in the wider context of the book's poor quality, though, the ending is no more than one more arbitrarily-employed plot device.
Two words: time waster.
Elsewhere, self-proclaimed medium Madame Blanche and partner George Lumley are trying to track down a Mrs. Grace Rainbird's long-lost nephew. Predictably, there are skeletons in the closet of Rainbird's past, and perhaps she shouldn't be so eager to find this nephew...
The plot somehow contrives to be simultaneously predictable and confusing. The characters are poorly formed, unlikely, and unlikable. A number of plot elements (to name them would be to spoil the plot) simply make no logical sense, or go unexplained. And the ending is a sort of chilling coda that by rights should be a hook for the sequel, but as there is no sequel feels more like a sort of cheap ploy. It's like the author Canning wants to pass himself off as more sophisticated as the average thriller writer, and so threw in the sort of "Lady and the Tiger" ending that some judge the very pinnacle of sophistication. Taken in the wider context of the book's poor quality, though, the ending is no more than one more arbitrarily-employed plot device.
Two words: time waster.
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