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The Pariah, by Collin Wilson
Oct. 3rd, 2008 11:14 pmI just finished reading The Pariah by Collin Wilson, which is the 15th or 16th book in the Lt. Frank Hastings series of San Francisco police procedural novels. I'd previously read Twospot, which was a crossover with the Nameless Detective, somewhere much earlier in the series.
I was quite surprised how different the writing style was. I don't know if that's because this was written 10 or so years later or because Wilson had been trying to match the style of the Nameless Detective books.
In any case, though I thought the writing is this book was good--probably better than any of the other mysteries I've read lately--it was more a true crime book than a police procedural. Somewhere between 50% and 75% of the book was spent in the viewpoint of the criminal or his family.
That really didn't interest me, because I barely got to know the detective (Hastings) or his police officers. It also meant that I got very little San Francisco color.
I dunno if this was an aberration for this book or the style of the Hastings novels, but it's left me a bit off of wanting to read the others.
I was quite surprised how different the writing style was. I don't know if that's because this was written 10 or so years later or because Wilson had been trying to match the style of the Nameless Detective books.
In any case, though I thought the writing is this book was good--probably better than any of the other mysteries I've read lately--it was more a true crime book than a police procedural. Somewhere between 50% and 75% of the book was spent in the viewpoint of the criminal or his family.
That really didn't interest me, because I barely got to know the detective (Hastings) or his police officers. It also meant that I got very little San Francisco color.
I dunno if this was an aberration for this book or the style of the Hastings novels, but it's left me a bit off of wanting to read the others.