As I mentioned in my comments on Jeffery Deaver's second collection of short stories, MORE TWISTED, he who lives by the twist ending dies by the twist ending. Happy to report, Deaver lives more than he dies in this first collection, which I thought was considerably better than the second one, which I still liked. There were more stories in this one where I wasn't able to figure out the ending, including one that really had my jaw dropping on the last page. And there weren't any stories that came to a crashing halt while Deaver explained everything that was going on. This collection's well worth reading, and now the question is whether or not I want to try one of Deaver's novels again. If I do, I'm sure I'll have something to say about it here.
3 comments:
I'm sure most people would recommend you read one of Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme novels ("The Bone Collector" or "Coffin Dancer" or "The Stone Monkey" for example), but I prefer "The Devil's Teardrop," although, like many of his short stories, there's a twist at the end that had me scratching my head and saying, "I don't believe that." Of course, I was willing to go along with all the other unlikely thing in the book, so what's one more twist?
I read THE BONE COLLECTOR several years ago and remember thinking it was okay. I'll get back to that series one of the days. There's a new Lincoln Rhyme story in each of Deaver's collections. I liked the one in TWISTED, didn't care much for the one in MORE TWISTED.
All this mixed reaction makes me feel better about finding Deaver's work mostly execrable while he continues to rack up awards nominations. The one in EQMMM a few years back about the stalked model remains the nadir of my experiences with his work, but his clumsiness and lack of anything like verisimilitude in his Big Twists (and the lack of surprise when he does come a little closer to verisimilitude) has left me wondering what other folks were reading.
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