Very disappointed by the latest novel of Lawrence Osborne, an author I have been recommending left and right in the last five years. I can’t believe that after Hunters in the Dark, The Forgiven, and Beautiful Animals (the works that I rate highest among his oeuvre) he penned this half-baked story.
The plot of the novel, the mechanism that makes all its other parts tick is very week, to the point of not making much sense. What would you think of a terrorist cell of four who select one of them to commit the murder of their target, but then all of them have to be present at the glamorous event where the murder is supposed to happen without any of them having a role in the murder – just to have to plan their escapes?! Why would they need to be at this event in the first place?! Just to hang out and then escape?!
Things like that, as well as other non-consequential happenings, make you think what is mandatory for a good novel – it can’t offer just cool settings, ethnographic details like Turkish cuisine and drinks, descriptions of exotic Istanbul topoi, clothing, and expensive hotels…The characters are vague, their motives banal, they can be reduced just to their physical descriptions and some random behavior that does not engage the reader. The plot cannot withstand a very basic logical questioning.
What happened? It seemed like the author had a contract with the publisher and had to churn up something in a hurry….What a pity.