While the premise of this book was unique, the writing style was just not for me. I am looking forward to the movie version of this that is coming out soon, because I think this might be one of the few stories that is better on the screen than as a book.
We open on a 1980's armed robbery gone wrong, leaving three of the four robbers dead. Then we are introduced to each of their widows: Dolly, Shirley, and Linda. Dolly's husband Harry was a powerful organized crime boss, and leaves behind the means for Dolly and the other widows to recreate the failed robbery.
While each of the characters were believable, none of them were easy to love. Dolly is sharp as a whip and makes a formidable, sometimes unforgiving boss. The character development, along with the plot in general, move at an incredibly slow pace. To the extent that it was hard for me to push through to the next chapter at times because, while the plot was good, it had no sense of urgency and I felt a bit bored. Once we got to know the characters better, they often remained static, not developing beyond who we are originally introduced to in the first hundred pages of the book.
I think part of the reason the writing style falls so flat is that Widows was first a TV series in the 1980s, then the first season of the show was adapted into this novel. And it really does read as if someone struggled to turn a script and stage directions into a book, or as if someone is standing in the other room, relaying back to you everything that's going on while they watch the TV show. I know this may be an unpopular opinion, especially because so many of Lynda La Plante's other novels are really well loved, but this was just not the book for me.
We open on a 1980's armed robbery gone wrong, leaving three of the four robbers dead. Then we are introduced to each of their widows: Dolly, Shirley, and Linda. Dolly's husband Harry was a powerful organized crime boss, and leaves behind the means for Dolly and the other widows to recreate the failed robbery.
While each of the characters were believable, none of them were easy to love. Dolly is sharp as a whip and makes a formidable, sometimes unforgiving boss. The character development, along with the plot in general, move at an incredibly slow pace. To the extent that it was hard for me to push through to the next chapter at times because, while the plot was good, it had no sense of urgency and I felt a bit bored. Once we got to know the characters better, they often remained static, not developing beyond who we are originally introduced to in the first hundred pages of the book.
I think part of the reason the writing style falls so flat is that Widows was first a TV series in the 1980s, then the first season of the show was adapted into this novel. And it really does read as if someone struggled to turn a script and stage directions into a book, or as if someone is standing in the other room, relaying back to you everything that's going on while they watch the TV show. I know this may be an unpopular opinion, especially because so many of Lynda La Plante's other novels are really well loved, but this was just not the book for me.