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Other Child: A Novel Of Crime (2009)

by Charlotte Link(Favorite Author)

3.56 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1306621232 (ISBN13: 9781306621236)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Pegasus Books

review 1: I read the poor reviews of this book (actually some good, some bad) and was initially pleasantly surprised at the nuanced nature of the story. As it went on, though, I found it rather overwrought, and ended up being glad when it was over. (I didn't abandon it though.) I also found a lot of the dialogue uneven and unconvincing -- but that may have been due to the translator. (For example, one character uses grammatical, educated language at the beginning and reverts to awkwardly-spelled uneducated-seeming Yorkshire speech later on... I thought for a while we were going to discover that there had been an identity theft, but no: the differences were never explained.)Furthermore, the police procedural aspect of the book was also quite unconvincing - the process just didn't see... morem to fit what police would actually do. (Not that I know much about English police procedures, but it didn't fit with what I have gleaned from many other British police procedural novels.)And as many others have commented - the solution seemed ridiculous, and the "email messages" that gave the backstory (ie what happened in WWII) were completely unbelievable: they purported to be written by one character in order to "get it off her chest" - to another character who already knew the entire story. The installments of the story were much too long and descriptive, aimed at us, the readers, not the purported recipient: clearly the "email" was simply a vehicle to tell us that part of the story. Not a very innovative mechanism at this point, and not well done.
review 2: A gripping story, expertly woven to the surprising climax. A real whodunit, with a psychological twist, as it explores the vulnerabilities of all the characters, not just the main protagonist or the eventual guilty party. I'd like to know more about this author, as the book centers around the British child transports during the Blitz in WWII, while it's translated from the German. I'd definitely read this author again! less

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