27 Bones by Jonathan Nasaw
May 3rd 2010 00:46
27 Bones Cover
Californian based author Jonathan Nasaw returns with the third adventure of FBI Agent Pender. After retirement, Pender is approached by colleague Julian Coffee, now chief of Police on a Caribbean island. Two bodies have washed up on shore, both missing their right hand, and the police need to capture the murderer before the tourist season.
The story is well written and I really enjoyed it. I only have two points that I was less happy with. The first is a style-bug for me. I absolutely hate it when authors write in dialect. The story is set on a Caribbean island, I get that. I know how the language sounds. Writing certain lines of dialogue in accent and then flipping backwards and forwards is a diistraction. When you're reading a fast paced scene to have the dialogue go into "accent" and then out again interupts the flow of the paragraph. It's also confusing for people who have to stop and re-read the section to try and figure out what the characters are talking about.
The other oddity - more than a problem - with this book, is that unlike traditional crime thrillers, there is no time for the reader to figure out whodunnit. The serial killers are unmasked in the second or third chapter. There's also no time to figure out why they're doing it, as that is given to the reader almost as quickly. Most of the excitment and joy in a crime thriller comes from digging for clues and seeing if you can figure out who and why before the denounment at the end of the story. Having them given to you on a silver platter before you know what's happening feels almost like cheating.
I loved the characters in this book, and the story is really a character driven narrative at heart. Ed Pender, the over weight, retired FBI expert on serial killers is sharp as a tack and still manages to come off a little Inspector Clousea and I can definitely understand why Nasaw has written other books featuring him.
The Drs Epps and their "houseboy" Bennie don't get a full airing in the development closet. For a team of sexually sadistic sociopaths trying to attain immortality through sucking in the dying breath of their victims, they're obsessed with her ginormas bosoms - which are referred to regularly throughout the story to the point I kept waiting for them to talk - and the collection of the hands of the enemy to ensure Bennie is welcomed to his tribe in the after life.
Holly, the lesbian massage therapist raising her orphaned neice and nephew has a few moments of brilliance but really, beyond being the adult to a soon to be abducted child, she too never really felt fully developed. And Dawson, the middle-aged flower child, hiding a dark secret whose love of Pender risks her very freedom, also didn't seem fleshed out.
Apgard, the islands wealthiest person and his merging with the previously mentioned Drs Epps was a right prick really. I have to say, the ending and in particular his position in the final drama was a very good note to end it all on. I just wish we'd had the opportunity to watch him hang, but unfortunately we didn't get that far.
The novel is well written and thoroughly enjoyable. Very much a summer beach type novel - although maybe not if you're on a Caribbean holiday - and it's one that I think most fans of the Crime/Thriller genre would enjoy.
Prior to 27 Bones, I had never heard of Jonathan Nasaw, but I'm definitely on the look out for his previous two novels.
Leave me a comment wtih your views on 27 Bones if you've read it.
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