Spoiler Warning
The story didn't hold water. No. Can't agree to the way this book developed and ended. Ghost in the machine stuff.
The alcoholic, ex-vicar is murdered. Hmmmmm. Not a plausible thing. He was never developed as a threat to anyone. He should have been a threat to someone. He had the position to be a threat but he was never allowed to be. The storyline could have had him keeping a secret about the finances of the island which threatened Maycroft. He should have been a keeper of some confessional secrets of a serious suspect. Secrets unrelated to the crime often come out in a murder investigation and can cloud the vision. The fog of war, a military man might say. Why didn't we see the vicar muddled up in a secret suddenly exposed and then he suddenly murdered? We could then be confused about all that we had previously decided. But Dalgliesh would have been clear and focused -- as he always is.
The animal research laboratory manager -- the ending was too "correctly" ambigious to be interesting. Political puritanism of the politically correct world would not allow a character with a reasoned stance about animal testing in medical experiments. And how do you feel about ... international pharmaceudicals? Maybe we could write The Constant Gardener all over again except this time with a laboratory in the Midlands.
Okay, okay and what is all this about SARS? Very "in the news" that. It was a device to get Dalgliesh out of the picture and spotlight Miskin. But Miskin's part was not developed well. Too screenplay-ish that device.
And furthermore, what is this about internationally famous mountain-climbing grandfather that puts Benton on the face of a coastal cliff just to retrieve a bloodied rock (with a piece of surgical glove attached)? No, I don't buy it. Odd. Authors of "Structuring Your Novel" Robert Meredith and John Fitzgerald say that you should not write the parts that readers skip over. I skipped over this grandson of a famous mountainclimber after years of never strapping on a harness suddenly doing a Very Serious climb thing. Looks more like a movie made for tv stunt screenplay trick to kick up the action at the end of a morality play.
Little Dan Padgett the murderer. Oh well.
And I am a little tired of Emma Lavenham/Adam Dalgliesh non-affair. She does not seem interesting to me. What does she do but talk to her lesbian girlfriend -- who, by the way, is quite a bit more interesting than Emma -- and I don't mean because she is a lesbian (so predictable now-of-days to have a gay sidekick) but because she doesn't wallow about in this never-never land of inaction, indecision and angst that Emma populates. You know, I don't think I could have Emma as a friend. I have had girlfriends who get involved with unavailable men. They begin the relationship by walking on eggshells and it does not change even if they marry. I think they like being uncomfortable about their standing with the man in question. The pain makes them feel alive. And if Dalgliesh doen't get off "I don't want to be rejected" treadmill, I will get tired of him too. Too much of the New Age Sensitive Man - Feminized Into Inaction.
Now Piers Tarrant and Kate Miskin, there could be an interesting pairing. At least I know more of Piers' personality.
Ah well. I am disappointed. Darn.
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