Celine in Around the Year in 52 Books

Sep 17, 2018 Jacqie rated it did not like it

Shelves: didnt-finish

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy of this book for review.

I got about 20% through this one and skipped around the rest. From the beginning, I did not feel any authenticity from the situation or the characters. In the first part of the book, Celine is approached by a client. This client sits down with her to tell half of her story, leaves and tells Celine that she's done talking for now, will be in touch. Then she sends Celine a 5 page handwritten note that gives most of the rest of the st Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy of this book for review.

I got about 20% through this one and skipped around the rest. From the beginning, I did not feel any authenticity from the situation or the characters. In the first part of the book, Celine is approached by a client. This client sits down with her to tell half of her story, leaves and tells Celine that she's done talking for now, will be in touch. Then she sends Celine a 5 page handwritten note that gives most of the rest of the story, then says that she wants to tell the last part in person, so she'll be in touch. Finally a few days later she appears again and gives the last bit of her sad tale. I can't picture a real person acting like this, it seemed just like a device to build tension to me. The way the character talked also didn't feel like a real person's speech, it felt like written dialogue.

Then we get several flashback chapters from Celine's youth. This is called info-dumping and I'm not impressed with it as a way to deliver information about a character- it's about the clunkiest way there is! The author didn't want to drop bits of information organically into the story; no, he brings the story to a screeching halt to just tell you what he wants to tell you. I have a hard time believing that this is an award-winning author because of these issues- did he write his other books this way?

So, characterization that feels artificial (which is too bad because I guess Celine is very closely based on his mother), poor plot movement, and obvious attempts to build tension which only annoyed me. That was that.

Also, Celine is described as uber-WASPy, rich but she can't help it, she was just born that way, born to be the epitome of class, able to bond with anybody because she's just that classy. She's also quite partial to firearms. Unfortunately this put a picture in my head of a big haired Texas new-money folksy billionaire, not quite what I think the author had in mind.

This was a love letter that I think might better have been sent privately, but I'm in the minority here so YMMV. ...more

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Aug 15, 2019 Genie rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-women-detectives, fiction

I have enjoyed everything I have read by Peter Heller, and Celine is no exception. I think he writes beautifully and his stories are unusual and quite interesting. Celine is a great character and I hope he writes about her again. She is an elderly woman, born into American upper class and money, who became a private investigator, searching usually to put together broken families and missing family members. Great, unusual, character.

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