Customer Reviews

Apothecary's House

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had high hopes of the Apothecary House. Some friends of mine had enjoyed it and I wanted to give his writing another chance after disliking the award-winning Vienna Blood.

All I can say is that I will not be picking up a third book. The Apothecary's House was a fairly serious disappointment.

The story was interesting enough. I live in Amsterdam, so I really enjoyed the little descriptions of the city. The plot had the potential to be fascinating (although it did not end up that way) and on paper Ruth Braams is a decent character.

Unfortunately, I really had the feeling that Mathews was phoning it in when it came to executing the concept. The prose is very stiff, and Ruth never emerges behind her character eccentricities to become a real person. By the end of the book, I had a very difficult time caring about the conclusion.

This might be a nice read for the airplane trip back after a visit to Amsterdam. I'm not sure that I would buy it new, however.

I picked this book up at the airport, never having heard of it, but the author had won the Silver Dagger award for his previous book and I have in the past liked authors that have won this award, so I bought it on a whim. It's not a completely easy read, as some of the reviewers of his previous book (Vienna Blood) have commented. His writing is sometimes stilted and he does use unusual phrasing and words (good to have a dictionary nearby!). BUT, the book is very readable and the storyline captivating. The book is a hefty 706 pages in paperback, but I didn't find it too long nor did I feel like skipping sections.

The story is set in Amsterdam, the main character working at an art museum, specializing in repatriating artwork to their rightful heirs. She comes across a painting that is being contested by two possible owners and she get inextricably involved with one of them. That is when strange things begin to happen.

The only negative comment I have is that the ending seemed somewhat rushed. After having spent a good 400-odd pages delivering the story and setting the scene, the ending took just under 100 pages. But this does not detract from the story in a major way.

Although Mathews' other book, Vienna Blood, seems to have gotten very scathing reviews, after having read this book, I am quite interested in reading it myself.

I had really looked forward to reading this book. It appeared to be classic example of the genre. While the plot promised to draw me in totally, I found myself stuck and distracted by the author's style. I am starting to wonder if the prose is deliberately off-putting as a foil to the discrepancies in the painting. I hope so, because the inclusion of both American turns of phrase and an excess of English idioms makes the piece feel unreal. At times the text comes across as if many different people contributed, causing it to be disjointed.
I have not finished yet and really hope the plot comes through to save it in the end.

Excellent story for adults with a yen for thrillers, well written and with humour,great characterisation, and brilliant descriptions that bring to vivid life the people and places in Amsterdam. Perhaps a few too many Latin sentences which can leave the reader a little out in the cold, if Latin is not your first language. Mathews builds the suspense quietly, but surely and I found myself turning pages eagerly looking for the next link in the story. Hard to put down.

I did not care for this book - the protagonist seems like a callous, superficial woman. Too bad - I had expected more.