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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Just mediocre; does this author even LIKE dogs?...,
By
This review is from: The Curse of the Cockers (Mass Market Paperback)
As I've recently been discovering various dog-related mystery authors (Sue Henry, and the excellent David Rosenfelt), I picked up "The Curse of the Cockers" with interest.
Unfortunately, this was something of a disappointment. It's a bit simple-minded. SPOILER ALERT: The climax has the protagonist listening to, and cogitating about, the psychopathic murderer's lengthy confession while he lies semiconscious under a contrived deadfall; but I've read a lot worse. This certainly qualifies as Light Summer Reading. And I've lived in Britain, so I wasn't put off by dialogue and phrasing that some Yanks might find confusing. What bothered me was that this writer was unable to convince me of his affection for DOGS. (Or if he DOES like them, he was unable to balance that with simultaneously creating a suspense-driven storyline.) There are no loving (or even admiring) descriptions of his breed of choice (springers); no mention of the main character's personal pride in them; little personalization of them at all, really. On page 1(!), he mentions his breeder-hero "disposing of" unwanted non-show-quality puppies at his kennel. I thought, "He can't mean that they're destroyed," assumed clumsy phrasing and read on; but later he mentions casually that his kennel NEVER sells pet-quality pups. (And why on earth not, once they're neutered?) And: Our Hero would sell a "valuable" springer pup to the killer-in-disguise, without so much as a home check, or even an ID verification? This pretty much undermined my belief in a responsible breeder's "care" for his dogs, despite his boastfulness about theirs being a "quality kennel." This was all definitely very off-putting. The dogs never seemed more than a practical consideration for the (oft-drunken) main characters, or a plot-device for the writer. While I find the flip-side of dog-mystery writing (cutesy anthropomorphism) equally distasteful, it would have been nice to feel that this author (and his protagonist) had as much affection for dogs, as the audience he was plainly attempting to reach. I get the feeling that some publisher said to this author, "Stuck for ideas? Well - the Brit public is dog mad, you know that. Take your little mystery and try rolling some DOGS into it." This book wasn't terrible; because it's short, I read it through to the end; but overall, it was a "miss"... This dog won't hunt, folks.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Just mediocre; does this author even LIKE dogs?...,
By
This review is from: The Curse of the Cockers (Hardcover)
As I've recently been discovering various dog-related mystery authors (Sue Henry, and the excellent David Rosenfelt), I picked up "The Curse of the Cockers" with interest.
Unfortunately, this was something of a disappointment. It's a bit simple-minded. SPOILER ALERT: The climax has the protagonist listening to, and cogitating about, the psychopathic murderer's lengthy confession while he lies semiconscious under a contrived deadfall; but I've read a lot worse. This certainly qualifies as Light Summer Reading. And I've lived in Britain, so I wasn't put off by dialogue and phrasing that some Yanks might find confusing. What bothered me was that this writer was unable to convince me of his affection for DOGS. (Or if he DOES like them, he was unable to balance that with simultaneously creating a suspense-driven storyline.) There are no loving (or even admiring) descriptions of his breed of choice (springers); no mention of the main character's personal pride in them; little personalization of them at all, really. On page 1(!), he mentions his breeder-hero "disposing of" unwanted non-show-quality puppies at his kennel. I thought, "He can't mean that they're destroyed," assumed clumsy phrasing and read on; but later he mentions casually that his kennel NEVER sells pet-quality pups. (And why on earth not, once they're neutered?) And: Our Hero would sell a "valuable" springer pup to the killer-in-disguise, without so much as a home check, or even an ID verification? This pretty much undermined my belief in a responsible breeder's "care" for his dogs, despite his boastfulness about theirs being a "quality kennel." This was all definitely very off-putting. The dogs never seemed more than a practical consideration for the (oft-drunken) main characters, or a plot-device for the writer. While I find the flip-side of dog-mystery writing (cutesy anthropomorphism) equally distasteful, it would have been nice to feel that this author (and his protagonist) had as much affection for dogs, as the audience he was plainly attempting to reach. I get the feeling that some publisher said to this author, "Stuck for ideas? Well - the Brit public is dog mad, you know that. Take your little mystery and try rolling some DOGS into it." This book wasn't terrible; because it's short, I read it through to the end; but overall, it was a "miss"... This dog won't hunt, folks.
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