The Death Maze

23 August 2009 at 6:26 pm (Thoughts)

Book cover: The Death Maze

I’ll admit I pick books by judging its cover first. And this being the sort of book cover that catches my eye, I picked up it and looked at the first page. Which then turned into the second page, and then the third. Promising, I thought excitedly. Although I wasn’t sure if I should be spending any more money on books, I decided I couldn’t leave the bookshop without this one (and a Terry Pratchett one, which turned out to be amusing but not as earth-shattering as I’d hoped).

Anyhow, this was amazingly (pun!) good. There’s something about her writing style I like. Perhaps its the sheer descriptiveness of her writing. A lot of the musings of the main character is internal. No particularly witty dialogue (unlike in the Pratchett book) but this drew me in from start to end. The oh-so-happy ending was a bit on the saccharine side of things, but that’s only a minor blot.

I believe she won a book prize on the first book (The Death Maze is a sequel to that one), but having read the sneak peek of it (very usefully included at the end of The Death Maze), I didn’t particularly feel like looking out for it. Felt unnecessary to be getting to know the character all over again with the first book. Plus, much of the first book was insinuated or recounted briefly in the second book.

So I spent my dosh on another book, which I will start on as soon as I’ve finished reading a very old Agatha Christie of mine. (Yes, the digging in the old book shelves for long-forgotten books has started.)