Michael Hartnett (3)

I received an ARC copy of this book thru LibraryThing early reviewers.

The book follows a guy named Flanagan who has quit his job as lead writer for the reality show Peepin on the Pisanos (think Kardashians). Why? Not sure. He then starts filming a documentary about the death of a former Senator who was connected to a Pisano family member 30 years ago. Why does he start this? Don’t know.

To me the book is a mess. The characters are very thin, all of them are stereotypes of stereotypes. The dialogue is bad and enough to drive you crazy. For instance while meeting with an author, every time Flanagan mentions his books he says, “in your book, {book name}, you say…” No one talks like this. You would never repeat the name of the book 3 times in the same conversation. This is just one example of many.

Part of the documentary focuses on climate change and the late Senator’s focus on it. And the story takes place in New York and at one point a hurricane is bearing down on the city. Hurricane Zelda. Except you’d think someone writing about climate change would know that Atlantic hurricane names only go to the letter W at which point if there are more they start the Greek alphabet. There would *never* be a hurricane Zelda in NYC.

Anyway, the story plods along, the Pisano sisters show up at odd times, both try to seduce Flanagan (why? don’t know), mom is pulling the strings but not really. The big payoff of putting it all together isn’t really any type of reveal as it was basically exactly what you expected as it was completely telegraphed the whole way thru. Perhaps one of the worst books I’ve ever read.

Unimpressed. Not recommended. Half of one star.… (meer)

1.5 stars.
I was hoping for a good snarky mystery, and unfortunately, that's not what I got.
This book follows Flanagan, a reality TV writer who decides to quit his job to investigate the deaths of the husbands and lover of the reality show star. Why? Don't know. Doesn't seem like Flanagan knows either. The characters do a whole lot of explaining things to each other in awkward ways, and yet no one seems to have a motive for anything they do, least of all the main character.
The characters just felt flat. Everyone was a stereotype, an overexaggerated caricature. It almost could have worked as satire but it was played too straight, with no real meaningful commentary until perhaps the very last paragraph.
The "mystery" of Doherty's death is solved by the character following hunches he has no reason to have, asking some people what happened, and obtaining convenient deathbed confessions. Was there foul play involved in Frankie's death or Dirk's accident? We never find out. I wasn't really invested enough to care.
Overall, this was not for me and I don't know that there is anyone I would recommend it to. I know this is an ARC and can excuse some of the typographical errors ("email" is not capitalized; it's TikTok, not TickTock; there were several others, but those were the most frequently repeated errors), assuming that there will be copy edits happening at some point. I think it would benefit from much more significant content editing to bring out the mystery, develop the characters, and de-clunkify the dialogue, and unfortunately based on the listed release date, I don't think that's going to happen. Will steer clear of this publisher in the future.
Thanks to LibraryThing for the ARC. 





… (meer)

I don't typically add a review if a book is a DNF for me, so I'm considering this a placeholder for now (due to necessity of review for Early Reviewers program here).

I managed to get about 30% through before my wandering eye found other books and distracted me. Usually I'd keep cranking away and let the plot find a way to capture my attention, but things have been different during the pandemic and I'm less patient in these ways.

All of this is to say that while nothing really turned me off with this one, I did feel a bit like I was missing some background on El Buscador (maybe I need to start with his earlier adventures) and wasn't immediately able to connect to the character. I'll get back at some point though, as there were already some interesting supporting characters, the setting was vivid enough to be enticing, and the summary of plot sounds right up my alley.… (meer)