August 2020 Value Read - The Dentist, by Tim Sullivan

[Shell]

Looking forward to this read. Just bought my copy. Well I say "bought" it was free on kindle. Looks like an interesting main character.

[Beth]

Not feee in Canada but <$2 so a good deal

[Bill]

I’m almost half way and so far finding The Dentist a fast and pleasant (for a murder mystery) read.

[Pat]

I'm several chapters into The Dentist and find the author's writing style distracting. The extremely short and many incomplete sentences make the read feel like riding over a rocky, unpaved road--bump, bump, bump from thought to thought. Hope the mental ride smooths out a bit more as the story progresses.

[Bill]

Pat wrote: "I'm several chapters into The Dentist and find the author's writing style distracting. The extremely short and many incomplete sentences make the read feel like riding over a rocky, unpaved road--b..."

There are a lot of badly punctuated sentences that start out one way and come out another. Still, I enjoyed the story.

[Bill]

This pleasant and easy to follow mystery story is set in Bristol, with a body found near the famous suspension bridge, which I recall well so made the scene easy to visualise. The victim is a homeless man, but we discover that he was once a successful dentist. The unsolved murder of his wife years ago led him to a life of drink. The distinctive feature in this series is that DS George Cross has Asperger’s Syndrome (though these days that term is contested). As I have both family and friends with that condition, I was drawn to the story. Basically, it manifests itself in an absence of social skills and ‘common sense’, often combined with aversions of particular foods and sensitivity to noise. As an interrogator, Cross pursues a ruthlessly logical pattern of questioning to expose any inconsistencies in the suspect’s testimony. Fortunately, he also has a passion for justice, every detail, whether the placement of a file folder or a chain of evidence, must fall into place. This is also a very easy mystery for the reader to solve. As so often for experienced readers, we find ourselves asking, ‘Just why are we told this?’ about some seemingly innocuous detail about a character that leads to seeing a pattern, especially joined with the question, ‘How is the presence of this character necessary to the story?’ This is a very professional piece of work. The author is a screenwriter, and it often feels like pitch for a television series. For a couple of days amusement, I recommend it for light reading.

[Pat]

Bill wrote: "This pleasant and easy to follow mystery story is set in Bristol, with a body found near the famous suspension bridge, which I recall well so made the scene easy to visualise. The victim is a homel..."

So glad you pointed out that the author is a screen writer, Bill. That explains a great deal about the author's writing style. A script requires a different style from fiction novels and is necessarily closer to speech patterns and written in shorter sentences. Maybe if I take the attitude of reading a script, the book will go faster for me.

[Beth]

This was an OK read for me. I don't think i would rush out to read the next book (if there is one)

[Kirsten]

I actually have this so I hope to join in the party this month!