• Mood: hungry
• Music: Richard Thompson - I'll Never Give Up

They say he was just 19. A headcase but his record was clean.

Book Report # 56: Dorothy Dunnett, Dolly and the Doctor Bird

kellylink gave me this to read, and I'm having an interesting reaction to it. I dead loved the first half--it's witty, engaging, fast paced, and sharp. The protagonist is delightful, in a cynical, bitter, incisive sort of way that I suspect ladegard would love.

And then it falls apart at the seven furlong post. The middle is a muddle, as it were, and the ending winds up feeling very arbitrary--I'm pretty sure the author had lost track oif what the plot was, and was breaking things with the idea of making sense of them later--and at a certain point it stops being a mystery/character study and starts being a screwball comedy with occasional dead bodies.

She pulled it out at the end, though, and managed not to go where I thought she was going thematically, and for that I forgive her.

Also, for the really snappy clever writing, which is just a joy to experience.