unwanted guest

I picked up the paperback version of An Unwanted Guest at my library's book sale. I'll admit that I was in a hurry, but I'm not sure that a few more minutes with this book before taking it home would have helped. I'm not a big reader of mystery stories, but I've read a few. I'm thinking of The Best of Dr. Thorndyke Detective Stories, by R. Austin Freeman--which you can see in the column on the right of this page under the 'good' books heading--and of course, Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, which I've written about in 4 separate reviews here on the blog. You won't find a bunch of Dame Agatha Christie books on this blog for instance, and if you use the word cloud on the right hand column to sort for 'mystery' you'd find a few, but most of those are detective stories or police procedurals, or more likely, have some mysterious happenings that aren't revealed until the end. An Unwanted Guest, by contrast, is more of a traditional whodunit, more like the Freeman, Conan-Doyle, or Christie examples I've given.

Shari Lapena* has written her mystery using a classic whodunit scenario, or trope, if you prefer: Bunch of people thrown together in an isolated place, with no contact with the world beyond. When the crap hits the fan, everyone starts to wonder whodunit, quickly followed by, am I next? Whats different here, is that Lapena tells a complex, woven story, with lots of different viewpoints from the various character, and in many cases describes both what they are doing, as well as what they are feeling and thinking, when they are together, but also when they are alone. 

By the time we're getting toward then end, we know quite a bit about each of them, from both their personal thoughts as well as their conversations, and I was pretty impressed that I hadn't yet figured out who, in fact, dunit. 

The reason for that was a surprise! And yes, I guess you could say that this is a spoiler, which I don't normally do, but I'm not sure I could spoil this book any worse. The reason is because Lapena never tells us how or why the guilty person did what they did. Or, in fact, gave us any clues at all, until the final chapters where the guilty party graces us with a complete exposé of their history, their motives, and how they did it. Again, ALL invisible to us as readers until this very point. AND no one figured that out, or was ever privy to the guilty person's thoughts, just us readers. They got nabbed based on one piece of evidence found two pages before, which may or may not be enough to get them convicted. Its circumstantial, at best.

So I'm left feeling like: why did you make me read all this if there was nothing in there that would help me understand or solve any of it, and you were just going to tell me about it in 4 pages at the end. did she just mansplain that to me? i feel kind of dirty It was like watching Dateline. That show is aggravating: They already know who did it, they're just making me watch this drama play out for an hour before they tell me who did it. The only benefit Dateline has over this book, is that at least they share some of the evidence with you as they go along.

Don't bother. 

 

* When looking up the link to Lapena's website, I went there and another of her books is featured on the front page, with the title: She Didn't See It Coming, which is followed by the tagline; "and neither will you..." Hilarious! If its anything like this one, I can guarantee you won't see it coming, because Lapena won't show you!**

** That title and tagline--from a completely different book!--is almost enough to get me to add this title to my 'stinks' list on the right hand column. don't act when you're aggravated, phil