Review: The Girl with a Clock for a Heart

The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Started 3 (!) books today. This the September 10th, 2014 BOTM of the Goodreads Group Crime Detective Mystery Thriller Group.
(Added Sept 14th, 2014) Oh well, make that 4 books.
Regardless, this is about one book. So, having reached the end, and not wanting to spoil it, how to describe?
Great title, great idea, as explained after the book, this was a novella which grew into a book.
Beginning was slow, it picked up for me, as I forced my self to read on.
Two different times, the flashback story of 20 years ago & college time and the here and now, each given a whole chapter (or two) and then the other time-line was continued. But for me no real twists, as most where signaled long before they where revealed or solved.
So, one star less, as there is only one twist that I did not guess long before it happened (or at least not before it occurred in the story).

One other reason: did not like most characters, George was ok, but did not think too much with his brain, rather with a part below his belt.
While late in the book, at least at some point he questions himself and recognizes his foolishness, but then again even in the end he does not learn from his mistakes.
He is constantly being lied to, and helps this person again and again although he was fooled in the past by her and while he does not know the truth what happened 20 years ago, he suspects and what he knows for sure should be enough to keep away from her, regardless of the good sex they had.
The saying "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" is appropriate here.
The sex scenes are short, not very detailed and non-kinky, but not too boring either.

At some points in the story it would have played differently if cell phones where used, by being constantly reachable and probably GPS-Trackable, but it was well explained and made sense, that the main female heroine (or rather anti-heroine) did not use a cell phone for these reasons.

So, for me this is a solid 3 star, not enough twists and once again a foolish hero, who is obviously intelligent but still falls for the woman.
This could have gotten 4 or 5 stars if George or one of the other characters would have made a play for it and twisted the plot around in his or her favour. What saved this from getting less than 3 stars, was Boston, since Spenser (the Robert B Parker-Books & TV-Series) one City in USA I really like, and colder than LA & SF, my kind of City, and of course that George went to the police at some late point in the story.
Still, I recommend this book, but it starts slowly and is rather long, I think it could work better as the mentioned novella or with something like 10% less pages, some parts where too long and others not needed for the story.




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