RogerBW's Blog

I Shall Not Want, Julia Spencer-Fleming 09 October 2023

2008 mystery (modern police procedural plus amateur), sixth in its series. Police chief Van Alstyne is still working through grief over his dead wife. But he still has to be the police chief.

And this town is still full of hateful people, bound up in racism and toxic masculinity. Even the good guys refuse anything like post-trauma counselling, because surely breaking down in tears while you're driving is a good sign that you're ready to deal with a high-stress situation.

Meanwhile farm labourers imported from Mexico may be in the country illegally, and/or drug dealers, and/or victims of crime, and naturally most of the town is ready to leave all of Those People to solve their own problems. The whole thing is spread over about a year, which I suppose helps resolve my issue with the remarkably high murder rate in this small town, but I never really got a sense that anything else was happening in the times between; all the important moments are here, whether that's Russ and Clare dancing around each other, slivers of progress on the case, or the town's first policewoman trying to avoid getting into a relationship with a fellow cop (she had enough complications in her life already).

It's great that the relationship that's been building over six books finally reaches the point where both of them are mentally able to do something about it. I just wish I cared more about them and they felt less like worked examples from a textbook on relationships.

There's an early flash-forward to a very dangerous situation. Flash-forwards always strike me as the author not having enough confidence that their opening chapters will hold the reader's attention.

And there's another "things are looking vaguely positive, let's shake everything up out of nowhere" ending. Well, OK.

I'm interested to see where this goes, but my goodness it can be hard work getting there.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: All Mortal Flesh | Series: Fergusson-Van Alstyne | Next in series: Letters to a Soldier

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1