The Reckoning By Sue Walker.
Thirty years ago, eleven-year-old Miller McAllister's father, Douglas, was locked up for killing three teenage girls on the tiny Scottish island of Fidra. Now Douglas is dead and Miller - always believing in his father's guilt - returns home to bury him and his crimes forever.
But Miller's father has one last surprise for his son, along with the legal papers concerning the case there is a letter written by Douglas on his deathbed. A letter that turns Miller's world upside-down. Was he wrong about his father's guilt all these years? Was Douglas the victim of a miscarriage of justice? And if so. who was the real killer - and where is he now?
You know when you get one of those crime novels that grips you till the end, full of mystery and suspense? Well, sadly, isn't one of them.
Badly written with some extracts printed in italics that were so small and faint they were almost unreadable. The characters were badly drawn, unrealistic and, on the whole, quite one dimensional, their actions, especially those of the main character, Miller, unconvincing.
The plot, meanwhile, was extremely thin with nothing of any real relevance happening until more than half way through and then it wasn't until the last fifty or so pages that things became clear or as clear as they got in this book. Even then it was all a bit of a let down with so many questions left to be answered. A real disappointment.
4 comments:
And you read it thru to the end?
Yes. I generally have a 100 page rule whereby if I'm not enjoying a book by then I admit defeat but several people have questioned this policy so I read on until the very end.
I try to read to the end, but sometimes after a couple of chapters, the book ends up in the grocery sack I use to put the books I don't feel are worth keeping around for a second read. Even if they are bad, I hate to throw a book away, so if my neighbors don't want to read them, I put them out on the curb in front of my house so that others may find them. I have actually found great books in front of others' houses. But of course this is Berkeley, CA and many books that end up on the curbs have belonged to students of psychology...
I used to keep all my books, good or bad, but then space dictated that I sort them out & keep only those I would re-read. Similar to you Susan, I then sort them out into piles of 'so & so might like that' or 'that's one for the PDSA charity shop'.
On a similar note, do your public libraries sell off stock that they no longer use? Our library always has a trolley with books for sale on it - you get some great bargains as they only charge 50p for a hard back & 25p for a soft back plus it brings in some income for them so everyone wins.
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