Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I am currently reading the second of two books with identical titles: The Birdwatcher. Different author, different genre, different countries. (I admit choosing to start the second now specifically so I could have this first-time experience, but both books were bought at the same time.)
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And the result was...
The Birdwatcher by William McInnes. A gentle Australian romance. Some odd, and very Australian, characters and settings, the story is about many things while not being obviously about anything more than a birdwatcher trying to catch sight of a PPMG (Pale Pygmy Magpie Goose - a bird made up for the story, apparently). I liked this very much, but then I pretty much always enjoy McInnes, I like his voice. 4/5.
The Birdwatcher by William Shaw. An English crime story set on the Kentish coast. The first 20 odd pages of this were so off-putting that I almost didn't bother to go any further; the dialogue and set up of the story felt so forced (and this the author's fourth novel) that there didn't seem much point going on ... but I did. And it turned out to be a good story. The writing settled down and the intertwined stories of the current murder and the main protagonist's background in Northern Ireland became compelling so that I ended up finishing quite quickly. It's good, though not particularly remarkable as such stories go, so around 3.5/5. (Side Note: This is supposed to be the first of a series starring DS Alexandra Cupidi, but as she was the least convincing of the characters in this first book I'm not really in a hurry to chase up any more.)