The Puzzle Lady Vs. The Sudoku Lady (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
I have read all the puzzle lady books, I'm just not sure why. They're all terrible. This newest one is a convoluted mess, there are no clues to help you figure out who did it, and when you do find out at the end, it's just some random peripheral character with the weakest of motivations. The book is all talk and no action, which would be fine except that the dialogue is some of the worst I've ever read. Whoever Parnell Hall's editor is, they should be fired. No one talks the way they do in this book, and they all talk exactly the same way. No one has their own voice or manner of speech. If you want a good drinking game, you could take a shot every time someone in the book says, "now, see here!", which they all seem to at one point or another. The main character of Cora Felton is the only interesting person, and frankly I'm getting tired of the depiction of the local sheriff. He is, at the same time, a bumbling fool that cannot solve a crime alone, and a man who repeatedly uses the word vehemently. Really? The plot has people running around doing things for reasons that no one fully understands, that no one would really do. And it's inconsistency is ridiculous. There is an ex-husband character that is supposedly so mean and dangerous that the woman he was married to needs a restraining order, but when there's a "case", no one seems to have any trouble ignoring that to get information, or letting him run all over town playing private eye, for reasons I can't even begin to guess. Also, he's an idiot. He had no place in the book and should not even have been included. The ending courtroom scene is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. The cops, judges, and laws are completely ignored in this town, so why have them at all? The author himself even references several times throughout the story that if one of the characters were reading a book with this stuff in it, they'd throw it across the room. Is knowing you're terrible supposed to make it better? I just can't read these things anymore. I couldn't finish the book. The inane way Minami created theories of the murder were totally incredible and,this is just a quibble, I had a hard time with two Japanese ladies getting together for dinner and speaking English. This was too much so I put it down. It was too much to swallow the murder theories plus characters who are forced to follow a plot rather than unveiling the plot. I did enjoy the first in the book in the "Puzzle Lady" series. I wish I could have enjoyed this one.
What do You think about The Puzzle Lady Vs. The Sudoku Lady (2009)?
fun light reading, don't have to think too hard. Cora Felton is a hoot.
—Kim
An interesting twist -now I want to go back to the beginning.
—itiswhatitis
