What do You think about The Thin Woman (1992)?
The story was well written, but the book (which I read in electronic format) was so badly proofread I wanted to box someone's ears! It's obvious that it was typed and a spell-check was run, but there was no human intervention before the publishing. Here's an example:"You may mink poorly of her going off with another man, but she was a remarkable woman."This would pass spell check, but the word should have been "think". Many instances like this exist in the book, taking one out of the story and back to the real world with a thump. Parts of the plot were a bit trite, and I was a annoyed that the heroine hit her weight goal in 6 months by dieting, which is so rarely the case. From some of the other reviewers on Amazon I get the impression that the electronic book may have been abridged, as well, which is always annoying. Shame on Random House Digital Editions, especially since the book as listed on amazon is the full price of any of the dead tree versions. The author can write, and I'm going to see if there are more. This one is from the library - it's definitely worth a read.
—Miriam
What a bloody mess. Cannell adopts a 1930s, Agatha Christie-like style for her debut novel, which is a pleasant enough mystery for about two-thirds of its length. But then the author loses all sense of reality. The heroine-narrator, an interior decorator obsessed with food, utters howler after howler (“I desired a roast beef sandwich with horse-radish and pickled onions with a wanton savagery that I had never felt for any man”), and her romance with an oddball male escort almost –- but not quite -–plunges the book into “so bad it’s good” territory:Ben: “This is how it could have been if only I had confessed my love before you went and got so skinny.”Ellie: “Part of me will always hunger for the wrong foods but I have to tell you that I am not prepared to eat myself back to my old proportions so you can prove the integrity of your love.”The biggest head-scratcher of all is that, somehow, this amateurish junk food was included by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association as one of its “100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century.”
—Grouchy Editor
This book was Fantastic! It kept me smiling and sometimes laughing out loud the whole way through - very witty. I LOVED all of the characters; the plot was swift-moving but the descriptions gave me enough 'time' to imagine I was really there. This is by far the best of her books. In fact, I have reread it so often it is falling to shreds! A wonderful cozy book - any time I'm feeling down or nervous or moody, I can pick this up and be instantly swept up into Ellie's crazy life. Really really a great book, one of my favorites.
—ara133photography
