Crashed
After so many police procedural and detective stories, it’s nice to stumble into a decent crime novel. The premise is a simple set-up, a brilliant burglar is caught and then black-mailed by another criminal, and then?
“Inherent vice—that’s the tendency of certain artistic materials to deteriorate over time, the way most frescoes eventually peel and chip.” Page 149.
“Inherent vice,” new — to me — definition.
Then, the box — to me — beg comparison to the canon of Elmore Leonard. Think I only read one of those so far, but the reputation is legendary.
Crashed
There was a portion of the novel, I got so wrapped up in the story’s narrative, I had genuine compassion and empathy for the character, a character who was blown about by the winds of fate, and in my mind, getting to that point where i don’t distinguish between my own emotional content and the material presented in a novel?
Means I got lost in the book. While not an “un-put-able-down” story, there was a potentially creepy part, maybe just bugged me, but the way it stacked up? I didn’t want to read that late at night.
Middle of an afternoon, or even supper time, sure. Not late at night. Creeped me out. Sort of. Turned out to be plot device, but it worked.
Well-crafted by the end of the book, the pieces started to click. Almost a pastiche of noir detective, or a post-modern run at the same vein.
The library had the second book in the series, not sure if I’ll continue with it, but did, eventually, really enjoy the first.
Some days, bad guys just can’t catch break, know what I mean?
