I always appreciate the opportunity to receive a book and discover a new author (whether new just to me or truly a debut). When I read the sample pages here on BookishFirst, I was certain that I would really enjoy this mystery even though the lack of quotation marks for dialogue is not a literary style I like.. The initial premise certainly sounded believable even though the actual death of Dr. Snaedeker, a well known and highly regarded psychiatrist, was unusual: he truly explodes on the operating table. The cause is something that middle grade students would laugh about long and hard; Snaedeker had extreme and excessive flatulence, and even his top-notch surgeon can not prevent all of Snaedeker's bodily gas from turning a routine procedure into an O.R. explosion.
Unfortunately, I soon began to get confused and found myself wondering what this book was about as it twisted off into the life of Owen Berk. Hired to be an investigative reporter to get to the bottom (no pun intended) of Snaedeker's case, Mr. Berk actually takes over the book as an author of his own book-within-this-book. It seemed somewhat unbelievable that Berk the reporter uses actual people he's investigating as his characters - but with fantasized lives of cheating on spouses.
When it came time for the book to focus on the imagined sexual preferences of Dr. Spencer's wife, I was ready to stop reading.
I think I expected more because the novel was touted as a literary mystery.
Unfortunately, I soon began to get confused and found myself wondering what this book was about as it twisted off into the life of Owen Berk. Hired to be an investigative reporter to get to the bottom (no pun intended) of Snaedeker's case, Mr. Berk actually takes over the book as an author of his own book-within-this-book. It seemed somewhat unbelievable that Berk the reporter uses actual people he's investigating as his characters - but with fantasized lives of cheating on spouses.
When it came time for the book to focus on the imagined sexual preferences of Dr. Spencer's wife, I was ready to stop reading.
I think I expected more because the novel was touted as a literary mystery.