Who doesn't love a good mystery? I must say I do love a mystery novel, but Murder on the Eiffel Tower wasn't quite up to snuff. Maybe that's because I've read one too many Agatha Christie mysteries, so I can't really be called an impartial judge. I admit that the overall plot was very well thought out and the end was surprising, but getting from beginning to end was what troubled me the most.
I was initially attracted to this book because, in the jacket description, the main character was depicted as a bookseller, which he is. After all, if I'm buying a book, why wouldn't I like to read about a person that sells them? Murder on the Eiffel Tower starts right off with a death; that should have been enough to grab my attention, but it didn't. After this death, the author goes into background on the main character, Victor Legris. This is good background, things that I needed to know, and I was very happy reading it: his family history, how he grew up in England, but lives in France, etc. Still, all of this knowledge about Victor did not make me interested in him. There was nothing that set him apart, nothing that really made him special. So, there went one piece of the puzzle.
I very much liked the plot itself. It was a series of murders that all seemed to be committed by killer bees at World Expo that presented the Eiffel Tower. As the novel began, I really wanted to know if the murders were really committed by bees, or if there was someone behind the deaths. As I read on, I got bored. The pace was too slow for me, and I found that I kept getting distracted by other things: eating, laundry, walking the dogs. This is unusual for me, especially if I like a book; usually, I can't wait to be finished to find out what happens. In this case, I was reading it piece by tiny piece, just because I needed to finish it so that I could put its dust jacket back on and put it back on my shelf.
The love-story portion of the plot was a bit strange for me as well. I can understand infatuation at first sight, but the way that Victor goes about figuring out what his intentions and actions should be was too contrived. Also, based on what I'm told in the novel about Tasha, I don't think that Victor is anything close to her type. I suppose that maybe this was the point, but the age difference (in my mind), as well as the differences in temper and occupation, make it a very strange match. I would have liked Murder on the Eiffel Tower better if these scenes had just been taken out.
Pros: good plot, interesting situation, good character development. Cons: too slow, odd logic patterns, bad dating strategy. I can't recommend this book, but I'd say that if you're new to mystery novels, it's not a bad place to start. This would also be a good book if you just like history; I'm pretty sure that the details about the Expo and Paris at that point in time are correct, and it makes for a beautiful backdrop to a novel.
0 comments:
Post a Comment