Quote:
Originally Posted by caleb72
I'm currently reading Sleight Malice by Vicki Tyley for my review site. About a third of the way in and it has been OK so far. Interested to see where it's heading.
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OK - this one finished. It was good as a murder mystery. This is my second Tyley novel and in both she has avoided the police procedural. Instead she features a civilian woman as an inadvertent sleuth.
This approach allows for some real character development outside of the police force which brings it a bit down-to-earth for readers, but it does have its problems:
- is it believable that this person would go to such an extent over a friend's disappearance?
- is it believable that this person would tend to succeed where the police fail?
- once her actions put her in danger, would this person really continue with her bad ass attitude?
I wasn't fully satisfied with the answer to all of these questions, but I think with these types of stories it's quite hard to keep this aspect credible.
While the mystery was good, and I give the book a pass on the believability issues, there were a few aspects that gnawed at me.
The dialogue, particularly at the start, did not feel natural at all. I'm not sure if it's because I'm also from Melbourne (where the story was based) and that subtle problems with dialogue are going to stick out to me, or just that Tyley didn't do a great job with that aspect, but I found it a bit annoying.
The second aspect of concern made me feel like a bit of an alien. I really got a feeling that Tyley was presenting men in a very stereotyped way, particularly in how they thought about women. Maybe she was spot on and men nearly always have an internal dialogue about women in generalities and their own stereotypes. There was a lot of "because she's a woman" thinking going on with our main male character. I was beginning to feel like I was part of third gender at some points. I started asking questions like:
- Is this how men generally think about women?
- Is this how women generally think that men respond to women?
- Am I an alien?
But the writing itself (other than my problems with the dialogue) was very strong. I can't recall seeing any errors or awkwardness in the prose and that's always a big plus.
All my issues aside, I give the book a strong 3.5 stars, possibly 4.
Now, on to the sci-fi classic,
The War of the Worlds by H G Wells. It was on my reading list for this year and it's time to get started.