I'm currently reading Christina Falls by "benjamin black" (actually John Banville).
I only got like 70 pages in last night but it seems ok so far. kind of loosey goosey, as in not really tightly plotted. Lots of time is being spent on characterization which is good. So far we don't really get a sense of dublin in the 50s as a place. We have just hit 4 locations. I was kind of hoping for a bit more in that regard.
also the main character is a pathologist but we get no sense of the science of pathology at that time. the one bit with a body actually happens "off screen" as it were. We get a paragraph break and then it's all "He found what he needed quickly."
I'm not certain the actual intent of the author beyond trying his hand at crime fiction instead of literary fiction but so far there's little crime, little police work and lots and lots and lots of emotional baggage.
this wouldn't be problematic if it were tightened up a bit.
This may just be because my own reading recently has been short stories by Richard Matheson, along with Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill, so that terseness of style of writing is still on my palate. Convey as much information as quickly as possible with an economy of language.
But this isn't a book about plot. It's a book about relationships. So as a genre novel, so far, it's a miserable failure. As a genre exercise for someone who's a usually bit more florid with his prose (see "The Sea") it's marginally more successful.
We'll see where it goes from here.
