The Night Gardener is the only George Pelacanos book that I've read. It has a good story, especially if you like your mysteries to have a hard edge.
But there is one thing that is so distracting that I am having a hard time enjoying the book, and it is this:
Ramone,
Romeo,
Rhonda,
Ramirez,
Rudy,
Red,
Rogers,
Randolph (aka Randy),
Regina,
Robert,
Ronald,
Richard,
Richards,
Raymond,
Raynella, and
Ray
Those are all characters in the book! Apparently Pelacanos's random name generator got stuck on R. The hero goes by Ramone, a main bad guy is Romeo; the hero's wife is Regina, his partner is Rhonda. It is really confusing. And now I am more consumed with finding "R" names than I am with the plot.
Hmm, yes, I can see how that would be distracting. And I'm easily confused when it comes to keeping characters straight, so this could be a disaster for me.
ReplyDeleteWow... I don't think I've ever encountered a book with such intensely distracting character names. I've had a few confusions here and there, but never quite so much alliteration with the names...
ReplyDeleteCharley: The Ramone/Romeo duo is particularly confusing because the names look so much alike.
ReplyDeleteBiblibio: It feels like over half the names start with R! And now that I have the idea in my head, it's all I can think of when I read.
I read that book years ago and didn't even notice that!
ReplyDeleteI have a real problem with books like this. I get confused when character names are too similar and then annoyed because I have to keep re-reading when I figure out I'm thinking about the wrong character!
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