“The Rabbit Factory” by Marshall Karp – A big, bloated, boring book.
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010If you read this blog at all, you’ll know I gushed over Marshall Karp’s second Lomax & Biggs book, “Blood Thirsty.” It was gritty, witty, and a fast read. I couldn’t wait to get to the library to find other books by Karp. I was delighted when I saw his first novel, “The Rabbit Factory” sitting on the shelf! I snatched it, brought it home and started to read it immediately.
Imagine my surprised when I found none of the humor of his second book! Oh, there are a few jokes, but most are lame and just not that funny. The second and worse problem is that this book is WAY too long! It’s 574 pages and would have been a good book at about 350. There are a couple of subplots that add nothing to the story and should have been dropped. You know what Elmore Leonard says in his 10 rules of good writing – “Leave out the parts readers tend to skip.” Well, Karp had a LONG sub-plot about Mike Lomax dead wife that….I skipped. I’m sure Karp was trying to establish something about the character for future books (the dead wife is mentioned in “Blood Thirsty), but come on! It’s sad, tragic and has nothing to do with the plot of the book! The author could have given us the basics in a page or less. There’s a shorter but equally unnecessary sub-plot about Mike’s brother – who is 32 but sounds more like 12!
Okay, the premise of this book is that someone is killing people related to Dean Lamaar’s Familyland – a Disney clone. We start off when the signature character, Rambunctious Rabbit is strangled in one of the underground tunnels beneath Familyland. Lomax and Biggs are assigned the case and before they can even start investigating, one of Lamaar’s most famous male movies stars is murdered. Each victim has a similar clue on its body, is killed with something that can be bought in a Familyland gift store and the cops are afraid a serial killer is targeting Lamarr’s staff. When the chief (and apparently ONLY) CSI determines there were two different killers, the boy are stumped. That part bugged me a bit, too. The killings continue in different parts of LA and yet the same female forensic technician shows up at all the crimes scenes to make semi-funny remarks and discover important clues. Come on! They work in shifts and there are, of necessity, a lot of them. That’s one thing that irks me when reading mysteries. I read a lot of them. I write them. I volunteered at the Sheriff’s Department for two years to gain information. If you’re going to write a mystery, for God’s sake get the procedures right. Okay, end of rant.
The first two-thirds of the book are a mess – rambling and hard to follow. Those darn sub-plots sure don’t help. In the last part of the book, all the clues come together and it’s a decent read. I was actually surprised at the ending, which is rare for me.
I have to say, if the author had been an ordinary person, this big, bloated, boring, book in this form never would have been published – however, he’s a friend of James Patterson. Nuff said.
