ISBN: 0515131504
List Price: $6.99
Amazon Price:
This item is currently not available.
Buy this book
from amazon.com
or from
amazon.co.uk
|
Avg Cusomer Rating: 1
Reviews:
Summary: Wasted potential....
I'm glad I picked this book up from a used book store and did not pay full price. I have previously enjoyed the Jessica Coran books, but this one went way off the tracks. It had all the basic elements of a great crime novel, but Walker has distracted the reader with irrelevant trivia surrounding the location.
Walker must have had a brief trip to London and got caught up in the fact that the US and UK are "two countries divided by a common language". He wastes half the book explaining the language and cultural differences, so he must have developed a personal fascination and preoccupation with it. I say brief visit, because there are lots of factual errors. All of this totally detracts from the main purpose of reading crime novels - the Mystery. He has failed to create a real suspense that draws the reader into it.
I have come close to giving up on reading this book several times. I am only 60% of the way through, and it may yet end up in the garbage before I get to the last chapter. Reading the other reviews here, it would appear that we Brits come down heavier on the negative side (I have spent half my life on each side of "the Pond"). I wonder why? :-)
The comparison to Patricia Cornwell is very relevant - she went way off the rails in her latter books too.
Summary: Good read
This is the second book of the Instinct" series I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is good it is not overly gruesome and the plot keeps twisting back and forth to keep you on the edge of your seat till the last few pages. After reading this I ordered 2 more of the books in the series. I would also recomend Unnatural Instinct as a follow up to this book. Jessica Coran kicks butt.
Summary: Absolute and Utter Waste of Paper, Time and Money!
I found this book on a discount rack for a dollar. That should have been my first clue. What got me to buy it was a Clive Cussler comment, "Walker is Masterful." Well, Clive's books have been going downhill, so maybe I shouldn't have placed stock in his comment.Amateurish would be a compliment for this writer, who displays from almost the first page his utter lack of understanding of the subject matter and a total lack of research into his chosen main location, London. Inaccuracies and errors abound (I found his reference to Sherlock Holmes living at 21 Baker Street to be particularly amusing). It looks like he bought a tourist book of London and freely quoted from it in order to flesh out his locations and descriptions. He used a phrasebook to get his London expressions right, and when he needed to fill out a chapter he just spent four pages defining English colloqialisms. By the way, Mr. Walker, using the word "bloody" this or that is particularly insulting in England, comparable to using the "F" word in America. If Sharpe used it that frequently around Jessica, he was being an unfeeling and insensitive cad to a visitor he was trying to get friendly with. The author also has no time sense, skipping merrily from morning to afternoon to evening with no continuity. As for his lead character, Dr. Jessica Coran, it is obvious that Mr. Walker hasn't had a date with a woman in years. He handles his title character hamhandedly, and has her make stupid, loutish and suicidal decisions that would get her drummed out of the Mayberry Police Department by Barney Fife himself, let alone be a member of the FBI. Her personality is oafish and insulting, and she displays a total lack of compassion and intelligence. Let me give you a clue, Dr. Coran. I knew from his first appearance who the killer was, and only a blind, stupid idiot would have missed it. In addition, never go into a dark, unexplored cavern without backup and with your prime suspects both ahead of you and behind you. You deserved what you got in the cavern. I wish you'd paid for your stupidity with your life. It would have ended this truly banal series of books. The book's supporting characters are shallow and unfulfilled. The relationship between Shape and Copperwaite takes wild swings even before their conflict. Their use of nicknames is inconsistent and confusing, with the reader never really getting a handle on their relationship. I also checked out the author's web site, which looks like it was made by a seventeen-year-old who has seen too many episodes of "Tales from the Crypt". A truly low-class web site that proves that you get what you pay for; obviously not much in this case. I've thrown this book away (a first for me) so that no on else will ever be in the least tempted to read it.
Summary:
|
,
amazon.co.uk
,
google.com
