crofteereader's review
1.0
I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.
I have two main problems with how the story was written: the setting and the characters. The novel is set in 1948, in the shadow of WWII in small town America. However, the war was only mentioned once, and main character Miller makes no mention of having gone off to war - despite the draft, which would have included him. Another issue I had was with the detailed understanding of panic attacks and agoraphobia, which is not something a man from a small town in that era would know anything about, if it was even discovered and coined yet. It felt like the setting was there only to a) have long train ride scenes, b) isolate the main character by not giving him phone access, and c) avoid needing any real technological know-how on the part of the clandestine organization.
As for the characters, they were stereotypes through-and-through. Miller is the private eye who was "too good" for the crooked small-town police department. Charissa was the perfect girlfriend who was funny and smart and seemed to do all the work for Miller. The crooked sheriff was so out of line that he was framing random people for murder. Puckett seemed to know everything and show up whenever Miller found himself in an inconvenient spot. Gabriel was a cartoon villain who spoke at length about his plans, laughed whenever Miller said anything self-righteous, bragged about his superior everything, and still managed to be taken down.
One last thing that got me: we know very early on that Miller is telling us this story at a 2 year remove. That means we know with absolute certainty that he survives, which takes away from the suspense of the story. There's no way he can die if he's safe two years later. It lessened the impact of all the scenes in which his life was threatened and made them feel almost cheapened.
I have two main problems with how the story was written: the setting and the characters. The novel is set in 1948, in the shadow of WWII in small town America. However, the war was only mentioned once, and main character Miller makes no mention of having gone off to war - despite the draft, which would have included him. Another issue I had was with the detailed understanding of panic attacks and agoraphobia, which is not something a man from a small town in that era would know anything about, if it was even discovered and coined yet. It felt like the setting was there only to a) have long train ride scenes, b) isolate the main character by not giving him phone access, and c) avoid needing any real technological know-how on the part of the clandestine organization.
As for the characters, they were stereotypes through-and-through. Miller is the private eye who was "too good" for the crooked small-town police department. Charissa was the perfect girlfriend who was funny and smart and seemed to do all the work for Miller. The crooked sheriff was so out of line that he was framing random people for murder. Puckett seemed to know everything and show up whenever Miller found himself in an inconvenient spot. Gabriel was a cartoon villain who spoke at length about his plans, laughed whenever Miller said anything self-righteous, bragged about his superior everything, and still managed to be taken down.
One last thing that got me: we know very early on that Miller is telling us this story at a 2 year remove. That means we know with absolute certainty that he survives, which takes away from the suspense of the story. There's no way he can die if he's safe two years later. It lessened the impact of all the scenes in which his life was threatened and made them feel almost cheapened.
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