David

Best ever Flowers-Davenport story ever!

Revisado: 01-05-23

Negative reviews seem based on right wing political aggrievement over gun rights. Left Wing bias, to my mind, plays no important role in this narrative - it is a fast paced, original, man hunt that never drags - Flower's and Davenport's dialog is delightful as ever - sometimes laugh out loud funny -looking forward to more of same. There is a polemic against illegal gun augmentation, where any nut job can obtain a 'bump stock' and convert a semi-automatic rifle into a military style assault weapon that is capable of standing off half a police force with a spray of full metal jacket rounds - if being against such madness is left wing, so be it.

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incoherent

Revisado: 04-16-22

The author presents a future dystopian world where the temperature periodically rises to above 130 F, killing people by the tens of thousands. A pair of Korean sisters own a mega company 'Census', which has provided an in-brain smart phone which almost all have implanted, and everybody can see everybody and everything. This device includes a 'dashboard' running constantly with information, someplace in the phone user' awareness, somehow, A space station is being built to house billionaires so they can escape the planetary misery, the initial construction to be done by a small group of 'pioneers'. One woman pioneer is secretly assigned to create an algorithm by watching everything the other pioneers see -their ' views'-she has some sort of special access to their brains - the goal being the ability to predict what people will do before they decide to do it. This ability when let loose on the world will enable Census to stop murders and suicides before they happen.

Much of this future world is left as vague as it is presented here, The 'Phone' , and the 'Views' are never made understandably real to the reader, Thus the narrative suffers since these two entities are principle characters in the story.
Also, since the world is coming, apparently, to a possible end, what would be the point in preventing a few murders and suicides? Certainly something more global would be a better focus of the world's biggest corporation

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

disappointed in favorite author

Revisado: 11-05-21

I have enjoyed several books by Backman, but this one disappoints. A group of people are collected by happenstance in a apartment viewing, where a would be bank robber stumbles in and inadvertently takes everybody hostage. What follows is a series of inane interactions between the cops, a psychologist, and the hostages which are meant to be funny, I suppose, but come off as hopelessly contrived - every question asked by the police, or the psychologist, is answered with a sarcastic, condescending insult by whatever 'victim' is being interviewed. As if this would be put up with by either the police or the psychologist. In some passages I had to lay the ear buds down and just wait for the passage to, well, pass.

Some of the other works by Backman are definitely worth a listen, in my view.

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Best ever view of future!

Revisado: 11-03-21

Lots of science, but this story is firmly based on character and relationships. And humor. The fantastic framework is convincing and never strays from the realm of the plausible. There are some strange characters here, but you will grow to love them. A must read! The ending of this complex story is both dazzling, and emotionally satisfying

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dreary, slow, circles and ends with a flop

Revisado: 03-12-21

What ever story exists in this tale of set in a hot, humid small valley in Scotland (Humid hot Scotland? Who knew?) it failed to emerge even though one suffered through to the end. What little story there is could have been told in one fifth of the time. Also, every character in the tale dislikes him or herself, and also all the other characters, with exception of the dog, Betsey, And at the end we don't know what became of her, since she was apparently abandoned , left to her one devices. Sad.

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Ancient Albanian blood feuds land on Gillard's pat

Revisado: 01-15-21

original suspenseful tour of the Albanian diaspora, which takes Gillard to Albania to discover the murderer of two people in London. Great characters, clean writing, and a huge surprise at the end that is free of contrivance. One of the best police procedurals ever. Quite the history lesson as a bonus,.

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Really, Really good!

Revisado: 04-04-20

D.C. Smith Series

D.C. Smith (Detective Constable), a diffident sort, has in his arsenal a potent force of personality that enables him to pin down an arrogant 'person of interest' like a collected bug. His police team is given to clever dialogue enriched by teasing, running jokes, and irony that often is laugh out loud funny. By the middle of one of these stories, you want them as friends. The writing can be poetically moving, the author being a master in the use of British English, its subtilties in dialogue, its capacity for playful humor. The plots are deep and rich, and are loosely connected through the several books, but can be read out of sequence without diminishment of enjoyment.

This series is the best of English police procedurals, in my view. I highly recommend it.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Slow

Revisado: 04-04-20

This could have been a short story - much of the material focuses on personal issues of characters, which failed to invoke interest, at least on my part, and the villain seems a caricature from a 'thirties movie, complete with twirling mustache and hissing snarls. I recommend the DC Smith 'King's Lake' series for an excellent British police procedural peppered with delightful dialogue, and laugh out loud humor as the calcified bureaucracy stumbles over the efforts of those trying to get the job done.

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esto le resultó útil a 10 personas

clever but slow

Revisado: 12-31-19

A very clever revenge launched by a beleaguered lawyer who has been framed by master scammers. The characters are fully formed and delightful, and well served by dialogue that has life in it. There is a great dog. For me, the story was thirty percent too long to serve its purpose, and therefore dragged quite a bit - conversations belabored issues repeatedly and at too great a length, to the extent I was waving my had impatiently as if listening to a loquacious uncle at Thanksgiving urging him to 'move it along for Pete's sake!'
However, this pace thing might be just me, and I hesitate to deter folks from listening to what is in my view a pretty good story, with some real cleverness. Just be prepared to be patient with some of the conversations.

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Smaltzy Hallmark card dialogue, fair suspense

Revisado: 10-17-18

Two of the main characters, the bohemian grandmother (rich, world famous painter, first name bases with world leaders, sexy at a certain age, awash in general wonderfulness, blah, blah,blah ) generally became a colossal pain, and the villain was a cardboard cliché whose antics became somewhat hilarious as the story unfolded. The dialogue often sounded as if copied from a hallmark greeting card, so full of mush and squishy sentiment it was.

The only enjoyable part of this confection concerned the young man who became a police chief in a small town, and his efforts to manage the small foibles of his constituency, such as the excesses of certain teenagers and of a fascist leaning math teacher. This part of the story seemed authentic and heart felt, and I wished they comprised the whole book.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas