Een Zaak Volgens Het Boekje (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
I've been a fan of Jeffery Deaver for many years and even had the oppportunity with a friend to meet him and get a couple of books signed when he visited a town close to me (to promote The Sleeping Doll) a few years back. I like his books. Some of his books have been outstanding. (in particular The Burning Wire, The Broken Window, The Devil's Teardrop and my favourite, probably The Blue Nowhere)A Textbook Case was an impulse purchase a few months back which I've only just got round to reading. It started off well and I was enjoying it. I was happy to be reacquainted with Mr JD but then I got a bit bored.... As another reviewer has pointed out, (those loyal JD readers amongst us) do not need to be reminded about Lincoln's and Amelia' personal traits. It gets boring reading the same blurb over and over again.....I felt the story overall had promise but feel this plot was probably more worthy of being written to fit some 400 pages not the short story format it was presented in. The ending was rushed and the case solved very quickly which doesn't really fit with what I am used to seeing from JD and didn't really fit the premise of the first murder scene/the killer's motives.Disapointing. As for the Kill Room, I heard JD speak on Radio 2 about this book. I'm not sure The Kill Room is for me but I'll add it to the "to read" list and will see about purchasing it when I can get a good price. In the meantime, I'll read the free teaser chapter that came with A Textbook Case. I also agree that a Textbook Case should have been available for free :) Much as I love Jeffrey Deaver... it turns out he doesn't know much about writing short stories. Not his fault, I'm sure; this is basically a promo-piece for his book coming out in June.If you're a fan of Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series, you know that he uses the same "tags" in every book to establish all of his main characters. In every single book, we are informed within the first couple of chapters of the following things:- Physical appearances/abilities/relationship statuses of Lincoln, Amelia, and about 5 other secondary regulars. - Lincoln's basic philosophies regarding forensics. In every book, this info is virtually identical, almost copy-and-pasted. As a regular reader of the series, you get used to skimming over these parts, which take up maybe 5 pages within the first 20. You understand that it's there for the benefit of anyone who may be picking up one of these books for the first time, out of sequence.What does this have to do with this short story? Well... Deaver puts it in. All of it. A good 30% of this story is content literally copied from every other Deaver book. It's not annoying when you've got another 300 pages of plot... it IS annoying when it's a third of the content. And, for the purposes of a short story, it's all completely unnecessary. So basically what we've got here is the bloated setup for a novel... and a very, very short follow-through. Couple of murders, one tiny twist, story over... oh and by the way, let's take up the last 15% of the document with an excerpt from my new book!Also, it's definitely not been edited to the same standards as his other material. There were a number of run-on sentences and awkward bits and a couple of tense issues. All in all, I would have shrugged and called it decent if it weren't for the fact that I PAID for this short story. This really, really should have been a freebie - it's basically just a promo for his upcoming book. And while I will still be buying that book and reading it eagerly... making me pay for an advertisement is just not cool.
What do You think about Een Zaak Volgens Het Boekje (2013)?
Tightly plotted, if typical of his style, Deaver work. Good appetite-whetting for The Killing Room.
—Reta
A classic Deaver Lincoln Rhymes story. Fast pace, well written and a quick read.
—moka
