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Mar 17, 2019LiesDLiesStatistics rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Seems to me that Connelly has drifted away over time from constructing interesting cases and is now really writing predominantly about the characters he has created. He has always done great characterizations but now the cases/plots seem to be lacking for me. The central case in this book doesn’t really get “solved” until the last 50 pages and then by “investigator intuition” (my quotes) in a jump of certainty with basically no build up of evidence or logical inference over the course of the book (“All in a moment, Ballard knew.” Pg 386 of 433). Sure, the faint clues that lead to this leap were due to continuing thorough painstaking procedural work but most of that work that was conducted over the course of the book (e.g. the shake cards) didn’t even contribute to the outcome (really, the solution to the mystery is due to a random encounter). This is probably the reality of police work but it doesn’t really work for me as compelling reading. It also seems to me that things just got all tidied up too fast at the end, like there was no case plot planned and at the end things just had to be wrapped up quickly and cleanly and with unrealistic excitement. Even with all my complaints about this book, I still enjoy reading Connelly’s books for his writing style and characterizations. So I rank it above average but I don’t think this is as good as many of his earlier books.