and so the time has come, look you see. i have gone right ahead and finished reading not just one, nor as many as three, but two novels. as i really do not know what to do about this other than share (or air) my views on them here, well, here we are.
for the sake of conformity with previous posts such as this, a look at the two (not just one or as many as three, or four even) books what i read, followed by a brief, sort of "executive summary" overview of them. this is for those of you who wish to avoid them spoiler things, or are in a bit of a rush.
to start off where i did, whilst If We Were Villains was slight, skimpy and superficial in its telling of a relatively small story, the novel proved to be thoroughly absorbing reading. moving on, and The Sentence Is Death is one of the bestest ever novels what i have read in quite a few years. it was excellent, really. but please, learn from my folly - this is book two, seek out the first, i believe called The Word Is Murder or similar as i dare to speculate it is just as good but, alas, this one that i read has spoilers for it.
right, then, follow me for a closer look at the two. well, if you want to. but, if you do (and i hope so), please bear in mind that a *** SPOILER WARNING *** is well and truly in place. yes, obviously, of course i shall try not to, but such are perhaps inevitable.
provenance of my copy? a bit different from the usual, for me at the least. i sourced and purchased this off of the internet, a renowned and well liked seller of previously owned novels and texts called World of Books. this was done after a very good friend recommended the book. not that they had read it, but rather as they felt it was "my sort of thing". quite kind of them to consider me so. actually, they have made several recommendations in the past, sadly not acted on, but fortune and time favoured such in this instance.
but what, you may ask, of the plot? well, the "action" starts with a chap just about to be released from prison, having served ten years for murder. the copper, or detective, or member of the constabulary who helped put him away meets him. it turns out that he has, for ten years, held suspicions that the wrong person went to prison. he requests that the recently released bloke tell him the real story, free of fear of repercussions, what with the copper now retired. and, for reasons never really made clear, he does.
how best to describe this? well, probably something like suggesting you take The Breakfast Club and mix it with the darker (but not as dark) late teen school age stories of Bret Easton Ellis' early novels, throwing in a bit of the underlying elements of works such as Brideshead Revisited and maybe Another Country too, and rounding it off with a dose of being informed by Dead Poets Society. yes, a lot thrown in there, and probably one or two i have neglected to mention.
it's intriguing and engaging reading as it goes, but fundamentally not rewarding. whilst some of the reasons, motivations and causes of the crime at the heart of the plot are explored, the actual point of the novel never is. the curious copper, for instance, is strictly one dimensional in presentation, and we never ever get a clue as to why, out of presumably so many cases, this one "bugs" him. likewise, the imprisoned confessor. why a confession after the fact is freely given is never explicitly cleared up, or even tacitly revealed.
make no mistake, though. i would indeed thoroughly recommend this novel. although i could feel it was going to be shallow and not explore what it could, what it gave is what counts, and it really was an excellent read.
yes, i know, you want the provenance of this novel. well, from what i remember, it was Tesco, and one of their decreasing book deals. either it was £3 or £3.50, i doubt that it would have been 50p south of the lower price. the lower price was not the sole motivating factor, of course. no, i was reasonably, fairly sure that i had read an Anthony Horowitz novel before, likely one of his takes on James Bond, and found it to be good.
plot? well, it took me by surprise to find that the narrator, or indeed if you will protagonist, happens to be novelist and screenwriter (if tv series writing is a screenwriter, i believe it is, so yes and this has been a waste of brackets) Anthony Horowitz. yes, a quasi (or semi) (i presume) fictionalised version of the author of the novel itself. if it is a novel, and not a non-fiction work and i somehow missed the references on the back of the book or on the inside cover.
in a retrospectively hasty move, Horowitz signed a deal to write three books covering the adventures and exploits of an ex copper turned private detective frequently hired by the constabulary, Hawthorne. after the first one (presumably (The Word Is Murder), the writer clocked that he does not particularly care for the detective, the politics which seems to come with the police hiring him or being made to feel a fool at not being able to work out "whodunnit", despite such plots being his business. yet, still, he feels an inexplicable compulsion to try and understand his subject.
this novel was, frankly, as many variations as you care to name of brilliant, and then even better. i really loved this one. everything about it was, or is, compelling, interesting, engaging and all made for truly compulsive reading. despite me knowing how it all goes, i may well yet seek out the first of these, just for the presumed joy of reading it. certainly, all future Anthony Horowitz books i spot shall be purchased and read. except maybe these Alex Rider ones as i suspect that i am not the target audience.
let me leave my acolyte celebration of this novel there, then. please, just go read it.
right, well, anyway, that's about that for these two books what i read. both, as indicated, were thoroughly enjoyable and did all one could reasonably ask of a novel. obviously, though, i somewhat liked one of them a good deal more than the other.
as usual, or again, if any of this has been of the slightest or most remote of interest or use to any of you out there, well then so much the better.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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