Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein



I recently mentioned that my reading for June had picked up nicely. I am edging my way to completing my first challenge in 2009 by reading 100 books. Seeing that last year I read just over 100 during the whole year, meeting this challenge in the first 6 months of 2009 reflects a great reading year.

Now not all is rosey when it comes to reading because among the 100 books there are some great titles (Megan Whalen-Turner's Attolia Series; Kelley Armstrong's Bitten; Nalini Singh's work; etc) but you also have titles that were not so successful (Kay Hooper's CJ's Fate; Michele Bradsley's I'm the Vampire, That's why; Kinsella's Remember Me) and then you have those that disappoint you to the point that you wonder what happened to the author while writing the piece. Especially when the author has consistenetly been a winner in your book.

That was what happened with Linda Fairstien's new book Lethal Legacy. If you follow my blog you will know Fairstien has been a great source of enjoyment for me but Killer Heat really didn't give me the rush her work usually does and this last one... I could not believe how disappointed I was.

The story follows our trio of cohorts Alex Cooper, Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace as they investigate a murder that appears to be related to certain historical books from the NY Public Library. Now I was thinking that I would be loving this one because the whole bibliophile thing and being a big fan of libraries, NY being a weird variety of the ones we visit in our local town, but I felt lost from the get go.

Like for Killer Heat, there appeared to be way to much history thrown at the reader with out any real reason. I just can't see these people sitting around talking about the history of the library in so much detail. I love the history lesson but feed it to me seamlessly through the story. At one point I completely lost track of what these characters were after. Didn't really know what the crime was. Then Alex would mention the victim and I would then recall what was the end game.

The ending itself was very anticlimactic. The book flatlined early on and didn't give a sign of life again. After two disappointments I'm really going to have to rethink Fairstein's newer work. Unfortunately, she will no longer be an autobuy for me but I will still keep an eye on her since I know she has the potential to be great!

Grade: D
Format: Audiobook

1 comments:

Brenda said...

You're a sucker for pain, LOL! My new rule is that if you don't have me by disk two, that's it, I'm dumping it. Life is too short for the D list! Thanks for pointing out the real losers but I'm working on the good ones in my little pumpkin pod, woo-hoo!

 
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