{"id":343,"date":"2008-03-23T12:07:24","date_gmt":"2008-03-23T17:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fabricegrinda.com\/?p=343"},"modified":"2023-07-17T12:53:29","modified_gmt":"2023-07-17T12:53:29","slug":"the-club-dumas-and-special-assignments-were-disappointing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/the-club-dumas-and-special-assignments-were-disappointing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Club Dumas and Special Assignments were disappointing"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a long non-fiction binge, I decided to read a few fun thrillers while on my two ski trips. I picked up The Club Dumas<\/em> by Arturo Perez-Reverte and Special Assignments<\/em> by Boris Akunin on strong recommendations from Amazon, my friends and a review in The Economist.<\/p>\n

The stories are enjoyable, but something was missing from both. I am not quite sure what was missing, but the books lacked that special page turner \u201cI can\u2019t wait to see what happens next\u201d quality that some thrillers magically seem to conjure.<\/p>\n

I had extremely high expectations for the Club Dumas<\/em>. Having read The Three Musketeers<\/em> and watched The Ninth Gate<\/em> (and loved both), I felt ready to fall for the story. I liked the intrigue, but found the pace much too slow and the main character unappealing. I also really hate it when authors keep repeating what a main character is like to entrench our image of them. I get that Corso can use different smiles and looks to ingratiate himself to different people \u2013 no need to repeat it 100 times! Describe Corso\u2019s character a few times, then demonstrate it through his actions. No need for the repetition!<\/p>\n

I approached Boris Akunin\u2019s Special Assignments<\/em> differently. Special Assignments is a collection of two novellas on the adventures of Erast Fandorin, a 19th Century Russian special investigator described to me as a mix of James Bond, D\u2019Artagnan and Sherlock Holmes. Again, I found the adventure intriguing, but disliked the repetition about the characters\u2019 traits, the simple mindedness of most characters (yes we are in the nineteenth century, but that does not mean that everyone is na\u00efve and stupid), and the fact that it\u2019s more Sherlock Holmes than James Bond and D\u2019Artagnan \u2013 it felt lacking in action.<\/p>\n

Despite my misgivings, the stories were interesting and I feel there is something there. I am definitely going to give both authors another try. I will check out The Winter Queen<\/em> by Akunin and am still debating which Perez-Reverte book to check out next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a long non-fiction binge, I decided to read a few fun thrillers while on my two ski trips. I picked up The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte and Special … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books"],"acf":[],"contentUpdated":"The Club Dumas and Special Assignments were disappointing. Categories - Books. Date-Posted - 2008-03-23T12:07:24 . After a long non-fiction binge, I decided to read a few fun thrillers while on my two ski trips. I picked up The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte and Special Assignments by Boris Akunin on strong recommendations from Amazon, my friends and a review in The Economist.\n The stories are enjoyable, but something was missing from both. I am not quite sure what was missing, but the books lacked that special page turner \u201cI can\u2019t wait to see what happens next\u201d quality that some thrillers magically seem to conjure.\n I had extremely high expectations for the Club Dumas. Having read The Three Musketeers and watched The Ninth Gate (and loved both), I felt ready to fall for the story. I liked the intrigue, but found the pace much too slow and the main character unappealing. I also really hate it when authors keep repeating what a main character is like to entrench our image of them. I get that Corso can use different smiles and looks to ingratiate himself to different people \u2013 no need to repeat it 100 times! Describe Corso\u2019s character a few times, then demonstrate it through his actions. No need for the repetition!\n I approached Boris Akunin\u2019s Special Assignments differently. Special Assignments is a collection of two novellas on the adventures of Erast Fandorin, a 19th Century Russian special investigator described to me as a mix of James Bond, D\u2019Artagnan and Sherlock Holmes. Again, I found the adventure intriguing, but disliked the repetition about the characters\u2019 traits, the simple mindedness of most characters (yes we are in the nineteenth century, but that does not mean that everyone is na\u00efve and stupid), and the fact that it\u2019s more Sherlock Holmes than James Bond and D\u2019Artagnan \u2013 it felt lacking in action.\n Despite my misgivings, the stories were interesting and I feel there is something there. I am definitely going to give both authors another try. I will check out The Winter Queen by Akunin and am still debating which Perez-Reverte book to check out next.\n ","Category":["Books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17312,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/17312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/th\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}