The Matador Murders by Jerold LastMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
BOOK DESCRIPTION :
The Matador Murders, is set in Montevideo, Uruguay and Santiago, Chile. With apologies to reality, the Montevideo of this novel is much like the lawless Chicago of the prohibition years with the body count surpassing The Surreal Killer. That’s part of the fun of writing fiction----an author can turn one of the most law-abiding and civilized big cities in the world into the wild, wild west of the 19th century American frontier with the stroke of a pen (that’s a metaphor; it's more the click of a keyboard these days). The book features characters from Books #2 and #3 for a significant role (Martin Gonzalez, an Uruguayan policeman) and a major role (Eduardo Gomez, a Paraguayan policeman), respectively. Pat Bertram interviewed Eduardo on her blog last February, where he shared his impressions of life as a minor character in a series. He wanted a bigger part in a subsequent book. Well, his wish was my command and it happens here. I suspect he won't really be happy until he has his own book to star in. We'll see.
MY REVIEW:
I have not read the previous books in this series, so I found it difficult to "picture" Robert and Suzanne, and many characters in the book. In the technical sense, it was written well. I found very few typos or grammatical errors. The over all idea for the story of the book, the murders, and the way the main characters flushed out the bad guys was good.
However, in my opinion, this book seemed a little mechanical. I felt everything was over explained, I wasn't lead to any of my own conclusions by the plot. I didn't get a lot of page turning excitement. I was distracted by all the descriptions of tourist attractions, wine, food, and even cheese to the point I felt at times I was reading a tourist brochure rather than a murder mystery. The last twenty five percent or so of the book was the best part in my opinion, where the story came together and there was a lot of action.
It's style didn't really work for me, but again, it was technically well written, and the over all idea of the story was good.
I was given this book for free in exchange for a review.
View all my reviews