This review has an odd start, but bear with me, please. I will talk about a book—even if I'm not starting there.
I never liked the movie
Reds. I've only seen it once, in a theater at the time of its release, and I may give someday give it another chance, but I dunno. What I disliked about it was recognizing scenes from other "sweeping masterpieces." Oh, look! It's the red-lighted scene where Rhett and Scarlet part in
Gone With the Wind. Hey! There's a railroad scene like in
Doctor Zhivago. Oops. Back to
Gone With the Wind again. I had a similar reaction to Kate Carlisle's
Homicide in Hardcover, which bills itself as "First in a New Series!" (Be still my heart!)
Carlisle's female detective, Brooklyn (don't ask!), has the unusual career of restoring books, but in spite of that, I kept getting whiffs of other female detectives. Brooklyn shares a taste for fast food with Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone. Like Sharon McCrumb's Elizabeth McPherson, Brooklyn strives for a light, comical touch. Elizabeth, however, succeeds far more often.
So why'd I keep reading? Two reasons. 1) Early on Brooklyn meets and actively dislikes a cop. Ah, I thought, trite romance plot line number 42, category c. That one turned out just as expected. 2) At about that same time in the book, another character appeared, and I thought, "Ah, the murderer." On that one I was wrong, but then I had absolutely no clue the "bad guy" was restoring a family reputation after a relative shamed the name by saving Jews from concentration camps. Talk about left field.
Four specifics:
1) To give grudging credit where it is due: "This was why I owned my own business. I didn't work well in captivity." (page 83) Nicely turned phrase, also nicely descriptive. But let's make a comparison. The same sentences could apply to Kinsey Malone, but Sue Grafton never has to come out and say it. She shows us through Kinsey's behavior.
2) Another not-even-grudging credit: Brooklyn wakes up with a sense of doom and blames her mood on "the pint of Coney Island Waffle Cone Crunch I'd consumed last night while watching Survivor: East L.A." (page 100) Unqualified thumbs-up for the TV show. Here's hoping that when it actually happens, Maxine Walters can be a contestant.
3) And then Carlisle made me angry. Brooklyn is working on the restoration of a copy of Goethe's
Faust and says, "The book was written in the form of a play with the characters' names written out before their speeches." (page 168) Hey, Kate, think maybe it was written in the form of a play because it is a … play? Maybe there are readers who don't know
Faust is a play or how a play is written, but you've pretty much told me I'm not part of your target audience. And tell me: is your knowledge about book restoration as valid as your knowledge about drama? Just askin'.
4) "My appetite for food was history and trust me, that never happens." (page 197) Except for right now perhaps?
I don't have enough thumbs to turn down for this one. Trust me.
