Author: Christopher Rice
Publisher: Gallery Books
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review.
This novel ought to be re-titled "Snakes in a Swamp", because there are, and lots of them. But despite that, something bad is happening in the swamps of Louisiana. That's all I got out of this novel in the first fifty pages. Reading it is like taking a switch-back ride and having your back switched with one belonging to the guy who previously took this same ride and had his back switched out, and not in a good way.
I read one third of the novel and could not get into it. It was not badly written per se, but it simply offered me nothing. I could not develop an interest in any of the characters. I could not care less what they did or why. There was no clear story being told. All it offered was one mystery after another with - at one third the way through - no sign of any story developing or going anywhere. I had to leave off reading it for a few days, and when I got back to it I found I could not honestly recall anything significant that I'd read up to that point. It was like starting a new novel, and despite this bonus, when I started in on it again, I found that I honestly had no interest in pursuing it, especially with other novels on my reading list tempting me. So I gave up on it! I'm really sorry because I like to do a good review, and to detail some of the things which interested me, but I can offer nothing in support of this novel, not even to sustain my own interest. Life's too short to waste it on something which simply can't make your bunny hop.
