Saturday, June 23, 2018

Peters, Ellis (Fallen into the Pit)

I will definitely not be picking up the Brother Cadfael mystery series. Ms. Peters, ie Ms. Pargeter, crafts unbelievable characters, over-explains, and over-describes. However, her novels do all seem very British, so I guess she has that going for her.

I suppose I'm more of a fan of mystery writers like Chandler or novel writers like Steinbeck. They keep it spare by describing what's necessary, and they intensify the mystery as a result. Peters isn't necessarily florid in her writing, but she tells you literally everything her main characters are thinking and feeling. We don't need all that! It makes the reading sloggy (I almost wrote soggy, but that too).

Most particularly, the son of the cop (already forgotten his name) is an unimaginably precocious pre-teen (as is his young girl friend) who happens to be at all the right places at all the right times and yet still can't get his mum and dad to believe what he's seen. It isn't even really that he's precocious, it's that he gnaws on the plot line until it's threadbare and see-through. It's actually rather exhausting for the reader.

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