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annathepiperI have a confession to make, and it is this: I am simultaneously repelled by and attracted to books that shamelessly mention The Da Vinci Code in their blurbs. I think a small part of me keeps hoping that somebody will come along that will take what Dan Brown tried to do with that book and do it again, only better.
The problem is, Interred with Their Bones doesn't do this. It has one major advantage over The Da Vinci Code in that Carrell's prose is infinitely more able than Brown's, but once you get past that, you have a plot of the "Lead Character and Love Interest Travel to Various Strange Locales in Search of Important Object That Will Change History, and Are Pursued By Bad Guys, and Oh Yes Somebody Very Close to the Lead Character is Really the Bad Guy in Disguise" variety. In this particular case, we have a former Shakespearean scholar on the hunt for one of his lost manuscripts, around which revolves the secret of who Shakespeare really was and what sort of scandals he was involved in at the tail end of his life. Our heroine, Kate, is spurred onto her quest by the death of a former mentor, who of course hands over a Mysterious Package, and then there is of course the Mysterious Yet Sexy Guy With a Gun who shows up to provide the obligatory bodyguarding. Various colorful characters come and go, and several of them die in theatrically staged ways yoinked right out of the Bard's own plays.
All very well and good, but the characters that populate this plot are all very standard--competently done, but standard, with no particular surprises of motivation or character development. Most disappointingly, infodumps fly fast and furious throughout the book, and they weren't done deftly enough to hold my interest; I found myself skimming quite a lot. I don't know if a Shakespeare geek would find them interesting or annoying. Me, the only flare of interest I had in the middle of the infodumping was when the title Love's Labours Won showed up and I immediately thought, "But hey, we know what happened to that one! Doesn't this person watch the Doctor?" ;)
Anyway, long story short, pleasant enough but without much real substance, though I'll give it an extra half a star for making me genuinely briefly unsure who the actual killer was going to turn out to be. Therefore, two and a half stars.
The problem is, Interred with Their Bones doesn't do this. It has one major advantage over The Da Vinci Code in that Carrell's prose is infinitely more able than Brown's, but once you get past that, you have a plot of the "Lead Character and Love Interest Travel to Various Strange Locales in Search of Important Object That Will Change History, and Are Pursued By Bad Guys, and Oh Yes Somebody Very Close to the Lead Character is Really the Bad Guy in Disguise" variety. In this particular case, we have a former Shakespearean scholar on the hunt for one of his lost manuscripts, around which revolves the secret of who Shakespeare really was and what sort of scandals he was involved in at the tail end of his life. Our heroine, Kate, is spurred onto her quest by the death of a former mentor, who of course hands over a Mysterious Package, and then there is of course the Mysterious Yet Sexy Guy With a Gun who shows up to provide the obligatory bodyguarding. Various colorful characters come and go, and several of them die in theatrically staged ways yoinked right out of the Bard's own plays.
All very well and good, but the characters that populate this plot are all very standard--competently done, but standard, with no particular surprises of motivation or character development. Most disappointingly, infodumps fly fast and furious throughout the book, and they weren't done deftly enough to hold my interest; I found myself skimming quite a lot. I don't know if a Shakespeare geek would find them interesting or annoying. Me, the only flare of interest I had in the middle of the infodumping was when the title Love's Labours Won showed up and I immediately thought, "But hey, we know what happened to that one! Doesn't this person watch the Doctor?" ;)
Anyway, long story short, pleasant enough but without much real substance, though I'll give it an extra half a star for making me genuinely briefly unsure who the actual killer was going to turn out to be. Therefore, two and a half stars.
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Date: 2008-02-05 07:52 am (UTC)This actually sounds pretty good. Shakespearean themes seem to be popular lately! I just downloaded The Book of Air and Shadows from my audio book club.
I'm definitely a sucker myself for Mysterious Packages and Mysterious Yet Sexy Guys with Guns. LOLOLOLOLOL
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Date: 2008-02-05 03:21 pm (UTC)I'll look forward though to seeing what happens with this author after she gets a few more books to her credit. From what I saw when I looked her up on Amazon, this is her first mystery novel. I got my copy in hardback very cheaply at a sale, and I don't know when it'll be out in paperback; I'd recommend keeping an eye out for it in paperback form, though, or checking out the hardback from the library.
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Date: 2008-02-05 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 08:21 pm (UTC)