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Station Zero
Philip Reeve
Progress: 220/282 pages
The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Vess
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Robert Chandler
The Uncertain Land and Other Poems
Patrick O'Brian
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Marguerite de Navarre
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John Masefield
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Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes
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Selected Poems
U A Fanthorpe
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The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse
Mick Imlah, Robert Crawford
Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2
Ursula K. Le Guin
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Station Zero - Philip Reeve
Vanishing Bath - Peter Coard, Ruth Coard
The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 4 - Neil Gaiman, Jon J. Muth, Dean Ormston, Glyn Dillon, Marc Hempel, Teddy Kristiansen, Kevin Nowlan, Richard Case, Daniel Vozzo, D'Israeli, Todd Klein, Michael Zulli, Dave McKean, Charles Vess

Let the Devil Sleep, John Verdon

6:46 pm 11 November 2013
Let the Devil Sleep - John Verdon

The third volume in an on-going detective series sees a former NYC super-cop, now retired to the sticks get dragged into yet another investigation on an amateur basis. Once again the story is eminently readable and it is an improvement over its predecessors in that it is not blatantly obvious who the mystery killer is - in fact I guessed incorrectly this time.

 

Unfortunately, other areas of the book have not shown such improvement and indeed there is some retrograde motion in one respect. To talk about them goes somewhat into spoiler territory so I'll hide it, just in case - not that I'm going to tell you whodunnit.

 

 

One wonders who our hero became such a successful cop given that he never solves a case, on the available evidence. Three times in a row he merely turns up where the killer is rather than figuring out who it is. It's made out that the hero (who's name I've forgotten having read this months ago, in case you hadn't guessed) is some kind of super-cerebral whizz who can out-profile professional profilers and out-deduce Holmes - but he never does! As far as I can tell his amazing record as the best homicide detective the NYPD has ever had rests entirely on dumb luck.

 

Here's why (in my opinion): Verdon is desperate for a film deal.

 

OK, let me expand on that. Almost all Holywood movies have a 3 Act Structure that involves a final act in which there is a violent confrontation that resolves the conflict and a brief concluding scene or scene that wraps up character story arcs. This is the structure Verdon is using in his books  - and I believe he is doing it deliberately in order to make is books movie adaption friendly. He isn't the first and won't be the last.

 

The trouble is, the same structure could be applied by having the hero solve the case and dash off to save a potential victim. This would be a lot more satisfying given all the fuss made about analytical skills etc. This book is no different from its predecessors in this respect except that the denouement is on a bigger scale - and here's the retrograde bit - the scale is so big it's silly. It's like drafting an action sequence from a Die Hard movie onto a detective story. So the whole thing ends in even worse fashion than merely being somewhat unsatisfying.

(show spoiler)

 

 

I didn't pay for any of these three novels and I can't say I'm inclined to shell out money for any future ones. I might give Verdon another chance if a free copy comes my way again, though.

 

 

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