Outside of a Dog: King, Laurie R.: (08) Locked Rooms

David Tate

David Tate wrote on August 3, 2005 at 3:30 PM:

I’ll start by saying that I enjoyed Russell’s psychological journey of discovery here, including the dreams and their interpretations.

I’ll even admit to a guilty pleasure in the shameless co-opting of Dashiell Hammett.

After that, though, the book wasn’t very satisfying.

I agree with you about the sections labelled “Holmes” (though, as you note, they weren’t Holmes POV in anything like the way the Russell sections are Russell POV). The inconsistency of that voice was bad enough, but it also felt like the author couldn’t decide whether the material was supposed to be first-person, enhanced first, or tight 3rd, or what. The result was a hodgepodge.

SPOILERS ahead.

I was even more troubled by the flimsiness of the mystery itself. It was psychologically necessary for Russell’s family to have been murdered, but I really didn’t feel like the circumstances that were eventually revealed were sufficient foundation for that weighty a set of acts. Half a dozen murders, to prevent possibly someday being accused of looting?

And then the final tracking and capture, surely anticlimactic after all of that effort spent establishing how clever and competent the woman was?

After Justice Hall, these last two have been quite disappointing to me. I begin to fear that JH was the exception, rather than the new rule.

Kate

Kate wrote on August 3, 2005 at 3:38 PM:

David: I believe there was a matter of manslaughter at the least, as well, but yes, the investigative end of the book was certainly not its strong point.

David Tate

David Tate wrote on August 4, 2005 at 11:25 PM:

Oh, I know that the criminal was guilty of worse than looting, but I don’t see what he was afraid of from Russell. Why the rush to recover the stash? Shooting Russell in the street would be far more dangerous than simply letting things lie, wouldn’t it? Similarly, there was far more danger of being caught murdering the psychiatrist than there was danger that the psychiatrist might someday hypnotize the little girl to remember something dangerous. Indeed, nothing Russell could have remembered would have been dangerous by itself.