Damage Control Book

This will be the first book I have reviewed here, chosen because it is the book I am currently reading, and for no other reason.

It is superficially a tale of a strong independent career woman who triumphs over everything - a murdered twin brother, a skunk of a husband, breast cancer - oh and by the way she's superintelligent and attractive to boot. Stock characters for post-feminist women who like to have their prejudices confirmed - all the women are damaged in some way, but rise above their circumstances. The men have slightly more variations in their characters but would still happily fit into the slots "evil bastard" or "knight in shining armour".

And don't get me started on the "poor little rich girl" syndrome, where a privileged rich heiress is at the mercy of her lack of education and the beasts of men around her. Or the black maid. Per-lease! Where are we now? In the 1950's?

The writing is slightly schizophrenic. At one point I became convinced that the book was written by 2 people - one slanted firmly towards the "modern woman" market and the other, writing rather unpleasant scenes depicting the perpetrators of the crime, geared towards those who prefer a gritty, tough-guy tale. The moronic criminals in the tale - predictably from the underclass (in the USA'S "classless" society) - are rather dimwitted and white.

But the story hangs together OK.

Two minor quibbles. Tanzanite (blue zoisite) is a mineral mined exclusively in one region of Tanzania (from which, selfevidently, it gets its name) at the foot of the Merelani Hills. The production and exportation of this "one location" gemstone is strictly controlled. It is extremely unlikely that it would be "imported from the Grand Cayman."

Second Quibble. At the beginning of the novel there is a fairly well researched piece about the main character's discovery that she has breast cancer. Are we expected to believe that she never then gives this another thought until approaching the end of the book, when it conveniently serves as a plot device to enable her to get closer to her mother, who has been a fellow sufferer?

Reading this book has confirmed my suspicions that the tag of "bestselling author" tells you nothing about the quality of the book. It merely means that it has had extremely good PR. In the end it left a rather nasty taste in my mouth. But I'm a sucker for mystery stories, and as such it works, and is a reasonable page-turner. Hence the 2 stars.

I would suggest that you impose your own "Damage Control" and don't read it, but it's up to you.