Drop Slot Reviews: This female detective turned me off

Promises in Death - J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) (Putnam's Sons, 2009)

At the risk of sounding sexist, as a male I have a hard time relating to female novelists. In the past few years, there have been a couple notable exceptions, Ann Patchett's Belle Canto and Myla Goldberg's Bee Season. Both were suspenseful and moved the plot right along. Patchett was particularly adept at hooking the reader from the very first paragraph.

This week, I downloaded a J.D. Robb detective thriller in e-pub format from the Greene County Library Website to read on my Sony Reader. J.D. Robb is a pseudonym for best selling author Nora Roberts. I was not familiar with the writer, but I could tell that this was just one in a series of many detective novels under the pseudonym whose titles all ended with the phrase "in death." This one was titled Promises in Death.

I never considered the sex of the writer until I started reading. The name was not a giveaway. (I read two wonderful S.E. Hinton novels, Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, before I knew that it was a teenage girl who had written them.) The fact that the protagonist is a female detective was not necessarily the tip-off either, because I am aware that male writers have explored that realm. It was the kissy-face stuff and long digressions into man-watching and girlie parties. The writer seems obsessed with trying to prove that her heroine is a tough broad while still having an emotionally feminine side. Okay, I get it. But the plot, what little there is of it, suffers from the diversions.

Suspense writers especially and most other novelists know each sentence should make the reader want to read the next sentence; each paragraph should make the reader want to read the next paragraph and so on. I found myself skipping whole sections of 6-8 pages, because they were doing nothing to advance the plot. (This from a compulsive reader who likes to read every word of every book he starts.) It was as if the author realized she had a thin novel and had to fill it out somehow. I suppose that can happen when you have written over 170 novels.

I recently read the detective thriller Killer Heat by Linda Fairstein, someone I knew personally 30 years ago when I first started practicing criminal law and she first started out in the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan DA's Office. She also has a long series of female detective novels. Killer Heat was written in the first person and featured the head of the sex crimes bureau in the Manhattan DA's Office. With all the first person kissy-face by someone who has clearly projected herself into the role of heroine, on top of the fact of the writer being someone I happen to know personally, I found it quite annoying. However, Ms. Fairstein did not let the plot suffer for it. Each page made me want to read the next; each chapter pushed me on to the next.

Robb's novel is set 50 years in the future. The plot involving the investigation of the murder of a police officer is not entirely predictable, but her detective comes to damning conclusions through guesswork that is totally unsupported by any evidence. Then she repeats them over and over again to any other character who will listen, as if getting their concurrence will give them more credibility, meanwhile boring the reader into nodding off. (I dropped my reader several times.)

If you are tempted to read this one, I suggest you read the first chapter and then skip right to the last. Or, better yet, pick yourself up an Elmore Leonard and start turning pages.

Editor's note: Reader reviews of materials available at or through the Yellow Springs Library are encouraged and appreciated.