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A carregar... The Good Sonpor Russel D. McLean
Books Read in 2014 (578) A carregar...
Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. “I’ve already shot a man this evening, so what’s the difference now? Like smoking, it gets easier after the first one, right?” – J. McNee Dundee, Scotland based J. McNee (full first name never given) is not at a good place in his life when we meet him in author Russel D. McLean’s debut novel, The Good Son. Formerly on the Dundee police force, McNee was forced into early retirement following a car crash that killed his fiancée and left him physically disabled and psychologically crippled. Now working as a private investigator, McNee receives a visit from local farmer James Robertson whose estranged brother, Daniel, was found hanging from a tree on the family’s farm. Though the police have it down as suicide, James is convinced his brother did not kill himself and hires McNee to investigate what Daniel had been up to during the 30 years since James last saw him. In addition to putting him at odds with his former colleagues on the police force, McNee’s investigation opens up a Pandora’s box of local thugs, London gangsters and a mysterious woman with connections to both, as a visit to London reveals that Daniel had been working for one of that city’s most notorious gangsters, Gordon Egg. Not pleased with either Daniel’s unexplained disappearance from London, with a substantial sum of Egg’s money, or McNee’s visit inquiring about him, Egg sends two of his thugs to Dundee to get to the bottom of things. And that’s when things go seriously sideways, as Egg’s thugs, Ayer and Liman, cut a bloody path through Dundee in their efforts to retrieve the missing money. Convinced that James Robertson knows where the money is, and that he told McNee, Ayer and Liman pay a visit to McNee’s office that results in him being beaten and his office assistant shot. Already burdened with almost suffocating guilt over his fiancée’s death, the shooting of his friend pushes McNee over the edge, to the point he’s determined to stop Ayer and Liman no matter the cost… and McNee is willing to pay quite a high price. In McNee, author McLean has done a spectacular job of portraying a man in the seemingly contradictory position of being incapacitated by apathy for his own life, yet driven by guilt over the loss of his fiancée’s. The blunt, edgy dialogue and outbursts of pull no punches violence in The Good Son bring to mind the hard-boiled writing of the legendary Ken Bruen, and I believe it’s a well-deserved comparison. But make no mistake about it, McLean has demonstrated with his debut offering that he has a fresh, unique voice all his own. The Good Son is very, very good indeed.
The Good Son is McLean's debut as a novelist, but he's already known and much praised for his short fiction. This clever, tough, witty book is everything any reader could want in a mystery. The setting is Dundee, Scotland, and the protagonist is J. McNee, PI. Being a PI in Scotland puts him at an even lower level than his peers in Britain or North America, but it's a living. That means McNee has more personal demons than any one man can carry, and, when he's parachuted into a case where bodies drop like apples in autumn, his personal problems threaten to overwhelm his professional competence. This is a great character study with a wonderful plot and plenty of atmosphere. Pertence a SérieJ McNee (1) Prémios
There is something rotten behind the apparent sucide of Daniel Robertson and it's about to come bursting into the life of J. McNee, a Scottish private investigator with a near-crushing level of personal baggage. James Robertson, a local farmer, finds his estranged brother's corpse hanging from a tree. The police claim suicide. But McNee is about to uncover the disturbing truth behind the death. With a pair of vicious London thugs on the move in the Scottish countryside, it's only a matter of time before people start dying. As the body count rises, McNee finds himself on a collision course with his own demons and an increasing array of brutal killers in a violent, bloody showdown that threatens to leave none involved alive. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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As far as mysteries goes, this was less engaging than most for me. I had a hard time being interested in the beginning and a quickly grew a dislike for the macho tough-guy lead character. At 240 pages the mystery aspect lacks depth and falls flat before it can really begin, and it still feels like 15 pages could have been cut out of the end without effecting much.
I admit I am not fond of the genre, but this one isn't even terribly exciting. The only thing saving this from a worse rating is the unveiling of McNee's past, which is the only thing in the book that kept me turning the pages. Still not terribly interesting, though. ( )