I find little to object to in Colleen McCullough's police procedural mystery series set in the 1960's Cold War university town of Holloman, CT. CM is an aficionado of the genre, and it shows. Holloman is a pseudonym for New Haven, and Chubbs University is Yale, the school where McCullough taught neurology prior to becoming a best-selling author. As the moniker Chubbs suggests, CM finds her old employer and the politics of exalted academia worthy of good-natured but barbed disdain. As is often the case with me, I read the whole book in a sort of extended sitting over a day or so, and while I couldn't seem to release myself from its grasp, the book's embrace fell well short of seductive. Her love for and broad exposure to the genre and its convoluted plot twists is very apparent. In fact, it may be what holds the book back. It's almost as though CM pauses as each plot knot unravels in order to give us time to congratulate her cleverness. This phenomena starts in the first chapter where a smarmy Chubb's sophomore is snapped in half by a steel bear trap that he springs in his dorm room closet while grabbing for the satisfying fruits of extortion, $100,000 carefully contained in Saran Wrap. Perhaps her historical fiction set in Ancient Rome is a better read because the author finds the subject more humbling. This was a waste of time. I would never have bothered to finish it, but it was a pick for a bookclub so I persisted. Not a single character was interesting. I actually checked to see any mention of the author's personal stature since she made so much of the various heights and builds of the women in the story. Lots of detail about nothing important -- lots of information about what they were cooking for dinner, the dresses and shoes of the (unimportant to the story) women, etc. And a glaring anachronism!! A corpse found with nothing but a Mastercard -- which didn't exist in 1967! It only started in 1966 and it was not only rare, but called MasterCHARGE then. (Remember Chargex before it became Visa?)Too much stuff crammed into this story, without enough story to hold it together. Avoid avoid avoid!
Do You like book O Dia De Todos Os Pecados (2010)?
Quite enjoyed this, once I got my head round the number of characters involved!
—yash
This is a fun, interesting read. Not too deep, but good.
—jonahmonae1
Too many characters and plots, but enjoyed the challenge.
—jho
Could have had a better ending..still a good read!
—hirve
