onnurtilraun

A mixed bag, with the good outweighing the bad, but the weirdness was still noticeable enough to pull me out at times.

On one hand, I really enjoyed the prose, the banter between Mallett and Frant, the satirical edge in the characterisation, the mystery is solid and how in the end things are wrapped up in the end, in a surprisingly dark choice.

On the other, at times the pacing slows too much, to the point I found myself distracted and thinking of other things, and at least in this book Hare doesn't seem to have a deft touch for working in the satirical aspects. It might just be me, but while reading the first few chapters I had issues telling if the satire was supposed to be in the way the characters acted and spoke, of it the whole story was supposed to be a parody that just happened to have an investigative plot. Going further on in the book cleared up that doubt, but it was still slightly confusing.

Still, it was a very enjoyable read, and in the future I might pick up other books by Hare, if only because of the prose.