The Mystery Starts Here

I picked up “Sharp Objects” while working in the Friends of the Library bookstore. I paged threw the book, sat down and started reading and…couldn’t put it down. I wish I could say that was true of the entire book but…after a boffo beginning, the book bogged down and the pace never really picked up again.

The basic plot is that Camille Preaker, a so-so reporter at a third rate Chicago newspaper is asked by her editor to go back to her home town of Wind Gap, Missouri, to cover the murder of one child and the disappearance of a second. Right off the bat we know that Camille has family issues, personal issues and is a raging alcoholic. I got a hangover just reading about the amount of booze Camille drank without ever apparently eating. Camille has one other little problem – she’s a cutter. And not just your ordinary run-of-the-mill cutter, no she carves words all over her body. She’s only recently gotten out of a mental institute so you have to wonder what her boss was thinking.

So, Camille goes home to her totally dysfunctional family.  She hasn’t been back home in years and once you meet mother, you’ll know why. There is somewhat of a mystery about Camille’s older sister, Marion who died young. Or…maybe not such a mystery. While trying to deal with her family, Camille is also attempting to write the story of the dead girl. Of course we find the second girl dead shortly after Camille returns home. Neither of the girls had been sexually molested but both had all their teeth pulled! Yes, it’s an intriguing mystery. Unfortunately the author sent Camille down memory lane and she met and remembered her time growing up in Wind Gap. The mystery was pretty easy to figure out and the book ended rather abruptly. I wish Flynn had spent more time on the ending and tightened up the middle. Oh well. There is some drunken awkward sex with first a detective in town trying to help out the local law – then a high school boy – eeeeuuuu. Camille is…30-ish.

Flynn is a very good writer, for instance “she sat in a room the color of egg yolks”. I loved that and many more of her descriptive sentences. However, she had a few new writer boo-b00s that somehow slipped through the editor’s fingers. For instance, at one point, drunk, she drives to a park and sits there – drinking. Her younger half-sister, thirteen-year-old,Amma, comes by with friends and convinces Camille to go to a party with them. Theres a LONG scene where she’d drinking and taking drugs with Amma. It’s pretty unbelievable, but anyhow they walk home. The next day (after massive barfing) Camille goes outside and gets in her car. Ah, where did that come from? There are several of these gaffs that the editor – or author should have caught before the book was published.

“Sharp Objects” is a slight, 250 page book so it’s fast reading. Unfortunately by the time I finished I was ready to gargle with razer blades – it was just too, too depressing. AND, I wanted to shake Camille and tell her to grow up, get off the pitty pot and make something of her life! I hate whiners.

Want to read a fun, uplifting mystery? Got a copy of my book, “FINDER!” available now at www.wildchildpublishing.com or on www.amazon.com.

Joseph Wambaugh is a good writer but…I think he’s running out of ideas. “Hollywood Hills” is the third book in the “Hollywood” series. It revolves around the cops in the Hollywood division again and I sort of felt like I’ve already read this book. We get a lot of Flotsam and Jetsam, the barely intelligible surfer-dude cops, Hollywood Nate Weiss, at age 38 is still looking for his big break to get into the movies, and all the other assorted cops in the squad. The book revolves around a plot to steal artwork from a wealthy woman – I think. It was so convoluted I’m still not sure what it was all about. A couple of young druggies wandered in and out of the book along with the cops, the Hollywood characters in front of Grauman’s Chinese….you know, same old, same old. The plot was especially hard to follow because the author jumped around so much. I found myself skimming – a lot, just to get to the end.

In all the “Hollywood” series novels, something serious happens at the end. In the first one…or was it the second? Can’t remember, but the Oracle died. I won’t spoil the ending for you in case you feel you have to read the book but something bad happens here that will affect one of the main characters. I was disappointed in the book and had to force myself to finish it. There was no one better writing about cops than Wambaugh when he started and was still on the force. The longer he’s away from the day-to-day life of real cops, the worse his stories get. More than once, a cop-character in “Hollywood Hills” said they were going to use code 3 to call all the cops to the scene. No, code 3 is lights and sirens – always, everywhere. Wambaugh used the code correctly – once – at the end of the book. Time to hang it up, Joe.