I enjoyed Hunter's first Adam Fawley novel, albeit with a few reservations, so I was quite keen to read another. I still have those same reservations, alas. Firstly, the present tense is completely incongruous here. I don't like it at the best of times (whatever poison the Evil Fairy gave Sleeping Beauty would be ideal for the present tense: let's just put it to sleep for the next hundred years). Just doesn't work here. The POVs are a mess: Adam is first-person POV, but there are third-person POVs too. Whilst I've read many books with the same mix, here it's all a bit unstructured and random and doesn't fit together well.
It's an okay story: a bit convoluted, relying somewhat on coincidence and some rather unbelievable plot twists. Unnecessary when I actually had a pretty good idea who the culprit was halfway through.
Like the first Fawley book, there are chunks of text (TV/Press reports) in a very pale grey which were almost illegible on my Kindle (what is the purpose of it?).
I would also recommend Hunter/her editor(s) have a closer look at where Bristol is. I live there. And it's not 'on the coast', as one character declares.
Will I read Adam Fawley #3? Yes: if the formatting is checked, if the present tense is ditched and if the author has gets herself better editors (coastal Bristol isn't the only blip). That may well be too many ifs.
No comments:
Post a Comment