Reprisal

Rating:
Summary: My first of his and I want more!
Review: After spending the day reading this novel, as the story progressed, all I could think of was wanting to read more of his novels. We all know that variety is the spice of life, and after reading previous reviews, this is shown to be true with me.

Admittedly, I didn't understand the use of "peeing", like "all women always have to pee before they go anywhere", but I felt the story to be fast-paced, pretty incredible, but very believable when you know the true stories of some of those very mixed up people that walk our streets. I felt that in places he became a bit "wordy", but felt that it might not be for possibly more intellectual people than myself. I am not much of a fan of poetry, especially literary poetry, and could have done without some of those references personally.

I thought it to be a good day of good myteries, and definitely something that I see Hollywood making a movie of. Very enjoyable and I plan to purchase more by this author.

Rating:
Summary: But here's the thing...
Review: I've finally started reading ebooks, including those published in electronic format ONLY (presumably because mainstream publishers won't give these authors and their manuscripts a chance, etc).

It has come to this: every 9th or 10th ebook by an unknown nobody I read is unforgettable, delicious, flawlessly written, unique, side-splitting, heart-wrenching, classy, original and best-of-its genre. Meanwhile: paperbacks from mainstream publishers get worse, worse, and worse. Of the last 30 I've read, NONE has been memorable or very worthwhile, or even entertaining in many cases, so tell me, HOW do these publishing experts decide this stuff? Surely not EVERY paperback writer is a publishing editor's cousin's wife or a former college roommate or --

Anyway, about REPRISAL and Mitchel Smith, I did enjoy this book, I liked the characters/characterization, admired the poetry even though poetry bores me usually, and I respect the writer now that I'm done. But this is the FIRST book I've ever read in which I was able to SKIP HUGE SECTIONS, was in fact UNable to continue reading otherwise. Something definitely wrong there. I'm obsessive/compulsive about little things like that (skipping a single word in a book, missing a spot on a dish I wash; I often leave my bed unmade because smoothing and straightening it corner-to-corner-perfect takes just TOO long...).

About the peeing, was that really the strangest thing y'all noticed this male author having his female protagonist do, that women just DO NOT DO? Can I say it? Better not.

The ending bummed me out, by the way. I like my novels dark, but approving endings like this, I reserve for only the MOST worthwhile tales-leading-up, and Reprisal by Mitchell Smith is not one.

In my opinion, the book reads like a rejected manuscript that either needs a world of additional work before re-submitting, or the author to start another, better book.

Rating:
Summary: Dissappointing
Review: I've read a couple of other books by Mitchell Smith. If memory serves correctly, I read Daydreams, Stone City, and Karma. Stone City was excellent (about a small town History Prof in jail for drunk driving, who must discover which of his prisonmates is a serial killer who's offing the prisoners) and the other two were good. Unfortunately, this latest book is something of a departure for him, and mostly a disaster.

For one thing, while it's supposed to be a suspense novel, there was, strangely, no suspense. It wasn't that I guessed the ending so much as I didn't care. The plot involves a main character, Joanna Reed, who writes poetry and teaches at a small liberal arts college in New England. At the beginning of the book her husband is killed. We know he's been murdered because it's narrated for us, and we know how the killer did the deed. The killer is a young woman named Charis, and though we know how she did it, we're not supposed to know why. The problem is that there are only a few possibilites as to motive, and one becomes likely and obvious rather quickly. Charis moves on to kill the remainder of Joanna's family, one by one, and then tries to befriend her. This goes on for the best part of 400 pages.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to make the story worthwhile. The characters are somewhat interesting, but the suspense is robbed from the story. One side plot has Joanna (the widow) becoming convinced that fishermen must have killed her husband because he saw them smuggling marijuana. This is interesting, except there's not much suspense---we know they didn't kill him, and we know they won't kill her (because the book's about halfway over at that point, can't have a book without a main character). As a result, it winds up being a pointless plot device that goes nowhere.

I can't recommend this book, and Smith goes on the list of "maybes" for now.