Tonight we discussed the stand-alone novel "The perfect ghost" by Linda Barnes.
The story was about one member of a ghost-writing team. Her partner, Teddy, has recently died in a tragic car accident. Emily, the remaining partner is attempting to fulfill obligations to a publisher by completing the biography of a famous actor/director. She has always been the 'writer'. Teddy had been the public face of the pair. He did the interviews, the socializing, the public relations. Now all those aspects of the job were hers as well...
As is our usual custom we rated the novel out of a possible ten points. Sadly the group's average rating was a mere 4.6 points!
The reasons for our opinion: The protagonist was a flat, unlikeable, unemphatic character whom we really didn't care about. Since she narrated the entire book (with the exception of the interview sequences), that was a critical failing. Emily, the ghost writer of the title, was self-deprecating, and supposedly mentally ill... or was she? She turned out to be narcissistic and manipulative.
The Cape Cod setting was well portrayed and described. In fact the author handled the setting better than the characters. The characterizations were lacking depth and made the reader unable to invest much interest in them.
The twists were appreciated by some, but many found them to be thrown in the novel with little build up to maximize tension. Therefore they felt anti-climatic.
All the members who read it seemed disappointed. Many lost interest long before the end...
Tonight the lucky winners of the book giveaways were:
1. Kim
2. Jane
3. Carmella
4. Brian
Next month - on March 31st - we will discuss "Walt" by Russell Wangersky
Comments are welcomed. Any Whodunit members who could not attend tonight's meeting, as well as those who did attend and want to add their opinions, please submit a comment.
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