A review by danilanglie
Something Missing by Matthew Dicks
3.0
Hmmm.... Okay, I loved so much about this book's setup, and then the payoff was kind of... well, I'm conflicted.
Early on, we're getting all this information about how Martin is very invasive, not just in stealing stuff from his "clients" but in reading their diaries and bank statements, that kind of thing. He doesn't just take their food and cutlery or whatever. He invades their privacy like nobody's business. It's a lot. I kind of kept waiting for the ethical wrongness of this to be addressed. Instead, Martin's intimate knowledge and the ways in which he invades the privacy of his clients ends up helping him to save the day on more than one occassion.
Now, when it was the incident with the toothbrush that led to a man getting a rose for his wife, or saving a surprise party from being ruined, I still was having a really good time. But then, in the final chapters of the book, we take an extreme pivot into Martin saving a client from being... raped and possibly murdered? It was pretty dark, and it meant that Martin got to be the white knight and basically fulfill a really hackneyed male power fantasy of saving the day singlehandedly and then earning the gratitude of a damsel in distress. I... hated that.
There were other elements in the book that went rather unexplored. Like, what was up with his delusion that he was in a relationship with the regular waitress at his favorite breakfast cafe? That never had a payoff. And this business about reconnecting with his father was introduced seemingly out of nowhere and didn't have a lot of room to flourish.
I thought there was something funny and meta about Martin writing a book about a thief, as it almost starts to make you wonder about Matthew Dicks' potential former career. (I jest, but maybe not 100%?). But that too seemed to peter off and not really turn into anything.
I was engrossed by this book the whole way through, I liked hearing about Martin and how he was going to get out of all his various situations. His meticulousness and the clever solutions and rules he used in his career, were deeply entertaining to follow. But when I got to the end, I found myself pretty disappointed in where it all ended up.
Early on, we're getting all this information about how Martin is very invasive, not just in stealing stuff from his "clients" but in reading their diaries and bank statements, that kind of thing. He doesn't just take their food and cutlery or whatever. He invades their privacy like nobody's business. It's a lot. I kind of kept waiting for the ethical wrongness of this to be addressed. Instead, Martin's intimate knowledge and the ways in which he invades the privacy of his clients ends up helping him to save the day on more than one occassion.
Now, when it was the incident with the toothbrush that led to a man getting a rose for his wife, or saving a surprise party from being ruined, I still was having a really good time. But then, in the final chapters of the book, we take an extreme pivot into Martin saving a client from being... raped and possibly murdered? It was pretty dark, and it meant that Martin got to be the white knight and basically fulfill a really hackneyed male power fantasy of saving the day singlehandedly and then earning the gratitude of a damsel in distress. I... hated that.
There were other elements in the book that went rather unexplored. Like, what was up with his delusion that he was in a relationship with the regular waitress at his favorite breakfast cafe? That never had a payoff. And this business about reconnecting with his father was introduced seemingly out of nowhere and didn't have a lot of room to flourish.
I thought there was something funny and meta about Martin writing a book about a thief, as it almost starts to make you wonder about Matthew Dicks' potential former career. (I jest, but maybe not 100%?). But that too seemed to peter off and not really turn into anything.
I was engrossed by this book the whole way through, I liked hearing about Martin and how he was going to get out of all his various situations. His meticulousness and the clever solutions and rules he used in his career, were deeply entertaining to follow. But when I got to the end, I found myself pretty disappointed in where it all ended up.