A Book A Week - Week 6: One For The Money

This week's book:
    One For The Money     by Janet Evanovich

Grade:
    B+   

I chose this book precisely because I have never once, in all my peregrinations through bookstores, been tempted to pick up a Janet Evanovich book.  Gave it a pass just like I do Stephen King or Danielle Steele.  Her books just never seemed to be something I'd like, with their bright dust jackets and loud typefaces.  Like those neon-colored poisonous rainforest frogs, they said 'keep away, Don, you'll just be wasting your money!'  Not my cup of tea, is what I'm saying.

So I bought it - no library book for this one - and read it.  And I liked it.  I didn't like it as much as I've liked other fiction, but I did not hate it nearly as much as I've loathed other stories.

I'm not a mystery genre person, so I don't know how much this one adheres to the conventions, but I thought the author did a very good job of portraying mood and setting, and there was definitely tone.  Tone all over the damned place.  And maybe tone is what's made this series successful, because I had the mystery figured out halfway through the book.  Either the author didn't do a good enough job of obscuring the real villain, or I'm a regular Scooby-Doo.  I do like sandwiches and snacks...

I know from my own writing that beginnings are the easiest part of a story, endings are the second easiest part, and the middle is the hardest part by a huge margin.  Most bad stories fall apart in the middle.  This one almost did that.  There was a lot of going here to there for the heroine, a lot of visiting the same places over and over again, a lot of detail that did add to the tone but really didn't do a whole lot to advance the plot or obscure the mystery.  There were about fifty pages there in the center of the book where I was wondering if I'd skipped back a chapter or two and was re-reading what I'd read before.  But the author upped her game and the plot got moving again.
    The end seemed to be wrapped up pretty quickly, almost all at once and in the very last pages of the novel.  Like I said, I'm not a mystery person so this may be exactly what the genre requires, but for me it was a little jarring.  Story-story-story-story-story-story-story-reveal-ending.   Boom.  Done.

I'd say if you like mysteries, and have not yet read any of Janet Evanovich's books, you should absolutely give this one a try.  And there are a lot more to choose from, I think she's up to Ninteen now.
   If you're not a mystery person, still give it a shot.  The heroine is likeable, the supporting characters seem reasonably well fleshed-out, and the setting feels like a real place.  You may like it.


Next week:
   The Crying of Lot 49     by Thomas Pynchon
    I think this counts as 'literature,' pronounced 'LIT-ra-chaw.'  We'll see.