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A review by simonrtaylor
February by Gabrielle Lord
3.0
Cal Ormond returns in the second instalment of Gabrielle Lord’s Conspiracy 365 series.
Following the kidnap-heavy January, Lord rightly avoids repeating herself.
Sustaining a single headline mystery – The Ormond Singularity alias The Ormond Riddle alias DMO - over 12 parts takes a lot of skill, and Lord does a great job in judging how far to move the story forward. Some questions are answered, some more are asked and generally, the plot develops without much in the way of filler.
As with January, the action continues almost without a break and sustains interest. Whether this is resulting in a little barrel scraping is debatable, with the zoo sequence in particular being perhaps a stretch too far.
One of the best contributions of February to the canon is the introduction of the character Winter Frey. Slightly cliche (to the point of embarassing at times), but the femme fatale with questionable motives adds an interesting layer to the story. The audience are genuinely kept guessing about this enigmatic and interesting addition to the cast which will hopefully remain a prominent thread going forward.
There is a little gritting of teeth to be edured as Lord, a 64-year-old woman at the time of publication in 2010, writes as a 15-year-old schoolboy who still uses MySpace instead of Facebook and doesn’t know the definition of “enigma”, but in the main Cal is a believable and likeable lead.
With another cliffhanger ending and plenty of unresolved issues, March is well set up to follow.
Following the kidnap-heavy January, Lord rightly avoids repeating herself.
Sustaining a single headline mystery – The Ormond Singularity alias The Ormond Riddle alias DMO - over 12 parts takes a lot of skill, and Lord does a great job in judging how far to move the story forward. Some questions are answered, some more are asked and generally, the plot develops without much in the way of filler.
As with January, the action continues almost without a break and sustains interest. Whether this is resulting in a little barrel scraping is debatable, with the zoo sequence in particular being perhaps a stretch too far.
One of the best contributions of February to the canon is the introduction of the character Winter Frey. Slightly cliche (to the point of embarassing at times), but the femme fatale with questionable motives adds an interesting layer to the story. The audience are genuinely kept guessing about this enigmatic and interesting addition to the cast which will hopefully remain a prominent thread going forward.
There is a little gritting of teeth to be edured as Lord, a 64-year-old woman at the time of publication in 2010, writes as a 15-year-old schoolboy who still uses MySpace instead of Facebook and doesn’t know the definition of “enigma”, but in the main Cal is a believable and likeable lead.
With another cliffhanger ending and plenty of unresolved issues, March is well set up to follow.