Learning Strategies

Just finished reading Jeffery Deaver’s Cold Moon. Like the rest of his Lincoln Rhyme series, this novel is full of surprise turns. At many points, just when you’re finally sure that you understand what’s going on, there’s some new twist in the plot that makes you re-assess most of what you thought you knew. In Deaver’s books it’s rarely as simple as good guys turning out to be bad guys or vice versa; it’s more that some absolutely clear evidence turns out to be not what it seemed to be, and you think that the author isn’t playing fair and is lying to the reader, but then you check again and discover that he has been scrupulously honest. It’s just that as a reader you’ve been inadvertently lying to yourself, thinking that Deaver wrote something and discovering later on that that was the reader’s interpretation, not the writer’s words.

Although not great literature in any sense, Cold Moon is a gripping page-turner. Despite a few inaccuracies and a number of implausibilities that risk the reader’s suspension of disbelief, it’s a fine crime novel that’s a combination of a police procedural, a standard detective story, and a psychological mystery. Read it when you have a couple of days with several hours of free time (not on a school night).

Labels: books