This is the one before Crossfire. It tends to support my theory that this book was more of a collaboration than the last of the "ands." How do people collaborate on a book, anyway? A text or technical book - I can see it: each contributing their technical knowledge/expertise to specific areas. Perhaps they even write different sections of the book while reviewing and editing each other's work. But in fiction it is difficult to imagine - although I know it is done. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett have collaborated to create some of the best work from either of them - I read (probably a foreword or end notes) about how exciting it was for them to work together, but I still have no sense of the nuts and bolts - how the words actually got on the page. Oh well, subject at hand. This book is a more successful collaboration than the next one - which of course is the previous one here.
The bookmaker hero was less appealing than Francis's usual, but at least he had a connection to and interest in horses and racing. I suppose part of my lack of engagement was my unwillingness to think about the business of how odds are calculated and what they signify - the jargon was fairly meaningless to me. The part of the story that drops the mystery in his lap is dreadfully convoluted and not terribly persuasive. Also, the long drawn out business of his bi-polar wife doesn't really do much to advance the plot either.
I am thinking that I have been terribly cranky about virtually everything that I have read lately. I'm not sure where to go next. A good long nap, maybe - only the semester has just begun - no serious nap time for a few months. Maybe I will just pick out something that my sister has purchased and give it a run.
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