Stars: 1 out of 5
Well, I didn’t expect to give a one-star review to a Simon R Green book. I loved his Gideon Sable series and was pretty entertained with his Nightside series as well, but this book… This book is a huge letdown.
How can a book that’s barely 180 pages drag so much and be so boring? Well, it can if 90% of it is dialog. Don’t get me wrong, usually I like dialog in my books, but it needs to be good. In this case, if I hear another “Bish” or “Darling,” I will scream and punch someone.
And apart from the dialog, anything supernatural or even remotely scary takes so long to happen that you are checked out by the time people start dying.
We meet the characters in the parking lot of the hall, and they just stand around and talk for like 40 pages. Then we go into the hall, and they talk again. Then the lights go out, and everyone is uneasy… but they talk some more. At about 25% of the book, they hear some strange steps walking around… and, you guessed it, there is more talk. I would go on, but I think I made my point.
There is also absolutely no character development or even any real characters in this story to begin with. They are introduced as the bishop, the actress, the standup comedian, the medium, the celebrity chef, etc., and they have no personality beyond that function. We don’t know anything about them apart from their bickering and quips. So when bodies start dropping, I wasn’t sad or even invested. I simply didn’t care.
The mystery itself was also very on the nose. I had hoped that the author would pull a reversal in the end of the book, but no.
Also, why did a bishop suddenly transform into a great detective mid-book? He is described as in his mid-twenties and having taken the cloth right out of college. Nowhere is it mentioned that he also moonlights as Sherlock Holmes.
All in all, this series is a complete miss for me, and I am not interested in continuing with it.
PS: My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a review copy.