(I’m bummed tonight. I stopped for groceries, and not only has my usual store rearranged the sections again [for the sole purpose, I’m convinced, of trying to get us to look at stuff we’ve already decided we don’t want to buy], but Banquet TV Dinners appears to have discontinued their Yankee Pot Roast meal. The things that made the Yankee Pot Roast irreplaceable were not only that it tasted surprisingly good, but it was only 210 calories. Oh yeah, and it was cheap. I’ll never stay on my diet now, and it’ll be all Banquet’s fault.<\/p>\n
(Another Klavan review, this one from June, 2006. It has the distinction of being the only book of his that I’ve panned. It’s a stinker.)
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I\u2019ve been gushing over the books of Andrew Klavan recently (found one I hadn\u2019t read in the store tonight\u2014hurrah!). However, I feel obligated to warn you about one of them.<\/p>\n
I finished The Animal Hour<\/a><\/i> the other day. It\u2019s one of Klavan\u2019s earlier books, and I get the impression it was a kind of an experiment.<\/p>\n In my opinion, the experiment didn\u2019t succeed.<\/p>\n It starts out with a great hook. A young woman in New York City goes in to her job and starts to settle down at her desk, when another woman comes into her office and asks her what she\u2019s doing there. The conversation becomes a confrontation, and soon a number of employees have gathered. It quickly becomes clear that no one there has ever seen her before.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a terrific start. Unfortunately, at least to my taste, the rest of the book doesn\u2019t live up to it.<\/p>\n The mechanics of a great thriller are all there. Suspense mounts, and mysteries abound.<\/p>\n The problem is with an element that\u2019s usually Klavan\u2019s strong suit\u2014the characters. There were very few characters in this book who raised my sympathy much. Most of them were creepy in one or several ways.<\/p>\n Also the gore level was high.<\/p>\n Also Christianity didn\u2019t come off looking very good.<\/p>\n I\u2019d skip this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (I’m bummed tonight. I stopped for groceries, and not only has my usual store rearranged the sections again [for the sole purpose, I’m convinced, of trying to get us to look at stuff we’ve already decided we don’t want to buy], but Banquet TV Dinners appears to have discontinued their Yankee Pot Roast meal. The … Continue reading Repost: The Animal Hour, by Andrew Klavan<\/span>