Kill the Messenger, by Tami Hoag
May. 4th, 2006 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperPicoreview: Not the best Hoag I've read, but unusual in that it's a Hoag suspense novel without much of a love story to speak of. Set in L.A., with all the glitz you'd expect of the setting, but unfortunately not quite enough substance underneath.
Tami Hoag seems to be branching out these days. The last few books of hers I've read have abandoned her established mold of setting up a hero and heroine (both of whom have angsty pasts they're trying to overcome, and one or both of whom may be involved in law enforcement) embroiled in solving a nasty, suspenseful crime while they inexorably become embroiled in each other. Her latest, Kill the Messenger, has plenty of nasty, suspenseful crime--but barely a whiff of any romance. There's the slightly shady cop who's actually a decent sort despite his checkered past, and while he's got a love interest, their relationship is established already when the book starts and is not in fact a driving factor in the plot at all. And the other protagonists--a young bike messenger who winds up being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his incredibly smart little brother--are not entirely outside the Hoag mold; we've had prior books, such as the Night Sins/Guilty as Sin duet, where a lot of camera time is spent on a kid.
And I liked the plot; it was suitably convoluted, slathered with the glitz of L.A. culture. Problem was, I think there was too much glitz and not quite enough substance. Most of the main characters seemed little more than barely sketched in archetypes to me: the Street Youth With a Heart of Gold, the Incredibly Smart Child, the Shady but Decent Detective, the Noble Chinese Matriarch, the Crooked Cops Interfering with the Hero Who Really Wants Justice Done. Hoag's writing seemed clunkier to me this time around as well--it was more simplistic, and that might have actually worked some with the story being set in L.A., except that the prose interfered with the story rather than letting it flow to me. And it didn't help that Hoag gave her two young protagonists a very Hollywood-esque sort of ending that was way too damned self-referential to her own work, including not only the title of this novel but the title of her next one as well.
There were some aspects of the story that I liked, I'll grant. Though I don't think he got enough character development, and there were times when I thought he was an outright asshole, I did like Detective Parker. The fact that he didn't get a happy ending, and how he wound up reacting to it, gave his character some much-needed substance. And I did like the character Eta.
But all in all, Hoag has done better. It's not terribly likely I'll want to read this one again.
Tami Hoag seems to be branching out these days. The last few books of hers I've read have abandoned her established mold of setting up a hero and heroine (both of whom have angsty pasts they're trying to overcome, and one or both of whom may be involved in law enforcement) embroiled in solving a nasty, suspenseful crime while they inexorably become embroiled in each other. Her latest, Kill the Messenger, has plenty of nasty, suspenseful crime--but barely a whiff of any romance. There's the slightly shady cop who's actually a decent sort despite his checkered past, and while he's got a love interest, their relationship is established already when the book starts and is not in fact a driving factor in the plot at all. And the other protagonists--a young bike messenger who winds up being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and his incredibly smart little brother--are not entirely outside the Hoag mold; we've had prior books, such as the Night Sins/Guilty as Sin duet, where a lot of camera time is spent on a kid.
And I liked the plot; it was suitably convoluted, slathered with the glitz of L.A. culture. Problem was, I think there was too much glitz and not quite enough substance. Most of the main characters seemed little more than barely sketched in archetypes to me: the Street Youth With a Heart of Gold, the Incredibly Smart Child, the Shady but Decent Detective, the Noble Chinese Matriarch, the Crooked Cops Interfering with the Hero Who Really Wants Justice Done. Hoag's writing seemed clunkier to me this time around as well--it was more simplistic, and that might have actually worked some with the story being set in L.A., except that the prose interfered with the story rather than letting it flow to me. And it didn't help that Hoag gave her two young protagonists a very Hollywood-esque sort of ending that was way too damned self-referential to her own work, including not only the title of this novel but the title of her next one as well.
There were some aspects of the story that I liked, I'll grant. Though I don't think he got enough character development, and there were times when I thought he was an outright asshole, I did like Detective Parker. The fact that he didn't get a happy ending, and how he wound up reacting to it, gave his character some much-needed substance. And I did like the character Eta.
But all in all, Hoag has done better. It's not terribly likely I'll want to read this one again.