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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Were we reading the same book!,
By
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This review is from: By the Time You Read This: A Novel (Hardcover)
After seeing all of the other reviews, I started to wonder if we all were talking about the same book? While the idea behind the novel was an excellent one, I'm used to fast paced thrillers--which this definitely was not! It took until the middle of the novel to even get around to what the book was about. And even after that it continued to plod toward the ending. The idea, while unique, was thinly plotted.I do believe the author has talent. This is displayed in part by the complexity of the main characters, John Cardinal, Detective Delorme, and Dr. Bell. For these he gets 5 stars as they had depth, plausibility, and significance. However, John's wife Catherine was not very likeable and I wasn't certain why the author made her so distant and remote. I found it hard to care about her the way I did the other main characters. I also found the subplot unconvincing as though it had been thrown in to give Delorme something to do and a way to bring John and her together. However, it was unpersuasive at best. For example, I found the way Blunt brought the child abuser's victim into a relationship with Dr. Bell was only a construct so that he could tie it back to Cardinal's discovery of Dr. Bell's involvement in his wife's "suicide". This was just too convenient. Delorme's investigation didn't seem to be well thought out, and therefore, it lacked credibility. I also did not think Delorme's investigation would have led her to the correct perpetrator given the details in the novel. I think Blunt has a fine career ahead of him but this book did not rank with the many fine mystery novels I've read this year. I look forward to faster paced thrillers and I will read Blunt again, in the hopes that as he continues to write, his novels will mature with him.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Suicide Season,
By Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: By the Time You Read This: A Novel (Hardcover)
For fans of Giles Blunt and his north woods detective John Cardinal, the apparent suicide of Cardinal's long suffering wife Catherine comes as no huge surprise. With Catherine having spent much of Blunt's three previous novels in and out of psychiatric wards, the crime scene investigators of Ontario's Algonquin Bay have little reason to suspect foul play in Catherine's fatal dive off a nine-story building. But the distraught Cardinal is not so sure, and embarks on a grief-ridden one-man crusade to get to the bottom of his wife's death.There is no question that Blunt has talent, and "By the Time You Read This" starts with an intriguing premise set in this poignant backdrop. The author does a good job of capturing the pain of Cardinal and daughter Kelly without getting maudlin, and renders a credible portrait of Cardinal's dealings with his colleagues during this difficult time. Seemingly unconnected subplots involving a child pornography ring and the shotgun suicide of a local college student provide additional depth and deflect some focus from Cardinal's pain, and provide some context to keep detective Lise Delorme in the story. And Blunt adds finds some interesting new dimensions to add to the crime scene forensics. So far so good. But about halfway through the book, the plot starts showing some strain, and has thinned to the point that with nearly 100 pages left to go, the outcome, if unbelievable, is virtually inevitable. In setting up this complex and suspenseful thriller, it feels like Blunt got a few too many threads running in too many directions, and had to rush to reach a neat and tidy climax which instead felt forced, lacking the credibility promised in the opening chapters. All in all, an average read from Blunt - better than "The Delicate Strom" but not up to the "Silence of the Lambs"-class depravity of "Forty Words for Sorrow", or the tightly wound "Blackfly Season". With the paperback due next month, you may want to wait for it and save a few bucks.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Giles Blunt has got this mystery stuff down, he does.,
By
This review is from: By the Time You Read This: A Novel (Hardcover)
Giles Blunt, By the Time You Read This (Henry Holt, 2007)Some years ago, I read Giles Blunt's breakout novel, Forty Words for Sorrow. It was enjoyable, but nothing terribly memorable; in my review, I likened it to the literary equivalent of a Law and Order episode. Well, here we are a few novels later, and it seems that Giles Blunt (who, it should be noted, was in fact a staff writer for Law and Order and other TV cop shows back in the early nineties) has gotten it figured out-- By the Time You Read This is a good'un. John Cardinal and Lise Delorme return, this time to solve their toughest case-- the death of John's wife, which everyone (including John, sometimes) believes was a suicide. John uses his bereavement time to put together a case that his wife's death was, in fact, murder, while Lise finds herself embroiled with some particularly nasty child porn photos whose origins have been traced back to Algonquin Bay. Old characters return, new characters pop up, and all's right (or as right as it can be, given the situations everyone involved finds themselves in) with the world. Blunt has done quite a job with this one. It's a bit slow to start, but once it finds its pace, it chugs along quite nicely. The characters are well-drawn and believable, the plot all fits together (if, in some spots, a bit too neatly; one aspect of By the Time You Read This falls into the world of mystery-novel-cliche, but to tell you which aspect would make for a major spoiler), and Blunt has a built-in plot twist that will keep you confused long after you think you've got the whole thing figured out. A good book, this. If you're a mystery fan and have not yet discovered Giles Blunt, perhaps now's the time to do so. *** ˝
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