Revenge is a Self-Inflicted Wound, Giovanni Rex
If you read the blurb for REVENGE IS A SELF INFLICTED WOUND then you'll get a very good taste for the style of writing in this novel, which I've dithered around a description of for ages now and cannot for the life of me decide. I'm caught somewhere between "stream of consciousness", tempted slightly by the blurb's use of "part literary musing", confused by the statement "the author's tone is a times a moral cry for a better society", and bemused by the "pages are awash with blood and sex".
It's complicated and I do suspect (hope) the author is having great fun with this series. This was, however, a complicated reading experience, which sort of started out vaguely amusing, and ended up more confusing, and bemusing. It's so in my "your mileage may vary" category, under the sub-category "if you can find the keys".
Giovanni Rex’s noir-ish novels cut a broad swath across the contemporary genre. This is part due to the complexity of time shifts, narrative voices, and bizarre characterisations. Part thriller, part literary musing, the author’s tone is a times a moral cry for a better society, with more compassion, less violence, but at others the pages are awash with blood and sex. Whom ever the author is, and there are plenty of hints within his novels to assume there is another hand behind the declared writer, an excellent puppet master is pulling the literary strings. He/she has taken the noir convention and cut it to pieces. The action is a bomb-blast of fragments, the characters grasping for a slice of reality, and none more so than the fractured Inspector Giovanni ‘Rex’ Matsuko.
Review | Revenge is a Self-Inflicted Wound, Giovanni Rex | Karen Chisholm
|
Saturday, August 3, 2019 |