rameau's ramblings

In his second Nic Costa novel Hewson actually tries to spin a true mystery. Unlike in his first where he simply gave up, here the identity of the culprit is withheld until the end. That didn't stop me from cottoning on to it pretty quick and having a solid theory by the halfway point in the book. I was wrong about the motive but not about the identity.

Unfortunately, that's the good news. I was busy rolling my eyes at the character assassination passed on as character development. Teresa Lupo is the star here but she's thrown under the buss and put to jump through some irrational hoops for the sake of plot progression. Had it been handled right, she would've had a legitimate reason for her unconventional behaviour after the events of the first book, but Hewson was too busy focusing on the Bacchus cult rituals and orgies.

Nic Costa plays a secondary role in a book series named after him but his boss, Falcone, gets a few layers added to him. Not that I didn't appreciate those layers and shadows, but it just made the women in the book look even more unrealistic to me.

I have the third book of the series, but unless it significantly improves on the quality I'm probably going to break up with Hewson and his books.