Finished off John Schwartzwelders The Exploding Detective, which was a lot more focused than the rest of the Frank Burly stories, to its detriment. Normally, they’re detective stories in only the loosest sense, and more stream of consciousness stories about a loudmouth asshole who stumbles onto a series of completely unrelated set pieces that, if you’re lucky, kinda resolve each other; which honestly is what I love about them. It’s like someone transcribed a fever dream and added jokes. This one has elements of that, but it’s largely about Frank accidentally becoming a superhero when a publicity stunt is misinterpreted and then trying to get out of it.
It doesn’t really work as a detective story, since there isn’t any, and it doesn’t work as a superhero pastiche, and I’m not sure if John was really invested or completely disinterested in the story he was telling since there wasn’t any of The sense that he got bored and shifted to a completely unrelated story in the middle.
Ah well, can’t win em all.
Next up is The City and the Dungeon, which I don’t remember buying, because the One Button Checkout option on Kindle is a double edged sword.
It doesn’t really work as a detective story, since there isn’t any, and it doesn’t work as a superhero pastiche, and I’m not sure if John was really invested or completely disinterested in the story he was telling since there wasn’t any of The sense that he got bored and shifted to a completely unrelated story in the middle.
Ah well, can’t win em all.
Next up is The City and the Dungeon, which I don’t remember buying, because the One Button Checkout option on Kindle is a double edged sword.