In the Shadow of Gotham
I picked up this book - and the sequel to it - just before Christmas because they were remainders and cheap, and the reviews on the covers compared them to Caleb Carr's "The Alienist." And I have to say . . . I really regret buying both of them. Because "In the Shadow of Gotham" is BAD.The idea - the mystery itself and the plot - are okay, and would have been much more interesting in the hands of a good writer. Sadly, Pintoff is not a good writer. She overwrites extensively - putting information in a character's mouth as dialogue and then immediately explaining what they said in narrative, as if the reader might not be sharp enough to recognize information by themselves. Her characters are badly/incompletely described, so you get to the end of the book and you're not even sure what the main characters actually look like. Another character - who I think is meant to be a main character - is so unattractive and unappealing, you really don't care if you ever see him again.
Things might have been better if she'd had a good editor - but apparently she didn't. Near the beginning of the book, two characters take a ferry from upstate to get to NYC (which is iffy to begin with, especially if they're on the same side of the Hudson, which isn't clear), and for the rest of the book, they use the train to go back and forth. The main character makes a remark about an injury someone has, how it looks worse than it did "yesterday" - and he just met the man that same day. I could go on.
Suffice it to say, I was greatly disappointed in the quality of this book. The story could have been a good one, and she obviously did a lot of research, but her writing is just SO subpar, so poor, so flat, it ruins the book. I can barely give it two stars, and I don't know whether I want to even read the second one. If I could take the books back, I would.
