Customer Reviews

A Knot Garden

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This book follows a lot of the themes common in Geoff Nicholson's books - intrigue and sex revolving around an unlikely pivot, in this case a TV gardener. The book is written from a number of peoples views, and whilst this worked well in his other books, the number of angles taken spread the story a little thinly. Whilst I enjoyed the book, it is by no means his best, and is probably one for the true fans.

What a hopeless hash of a book. I'll be the first to admit that the conception of the book was undoubtedly clever, and must have taken a good bit of work. But just as it's not possible to make a cake without decent ingredients and it *is* possible to make a horrid cake despite the best ingredients, The Knot Garden turns to compost in this author's hands. The book is a mystery, yet as we near the end of the book, there is no mystery left to solve, and along the way, no Aha! moment. One needn't be clever to figure the thing out-- once the clues are in place, a six year old could untie this unsavory glop. And ultimately, with everything and everyone revealed, there is an overwhelming sense of "So what?" for the reader to take home. Rarely have I disliked a book so much that after finishing it the only reasonable thing left to do is throw it in the trash and try to forget ever having read it. This is one such book.