Pun Salad

I really liked the previous Harry Dolan books I read (The Good Killer; Bad Things Happen; Very Bad Men; The Last Dead Girl; The Man in the Crooked Hat). I was kind of disappointed in this one. Not bad, but not up to his usual standards. I didn't find the main character very interesting or sympathetic. The wry humor Dolan injected into his previous books is missing here. Everyone's sort of flat and glum.

Worse, there's a not-all-is-what-it-seems teaser on page 14 that's not resolved until the end of the book, around page 362 or so. Kind of a cheap gimmick, Harry.

That said, the plot is twisty, and there are a couple pulse-pounding thrilling action scenes along the way where the protagonist faces off against someone who wants to do her harm.

Plot: As an 11-year-old out for a midnight stroll, Kate Summerlin stumbles across a female murder victim in the woods outside her house. Scrawled on the victim's bare stomach: "MERKURY". Worse, the murderer is still hanging around, and utters the three titular words to Kate, scaring the bejeezus out of her, and (I think) kind of giving her psychological problems that persist into her later life.

That later life is where most of the novel occurs: over the years, "MERKURY" has persisted in killing people without getting caught. Kate has become a true-crime writer, and (it turns out) has some pretty good detective skills. She gets involved with finding a missing girl and also investigating the murder of one of the actors in a horror film made by a student at the local college. There are a lot of characters introduced, with names like "Devin", and "Bryan", and "Todd".

I have to say (spoiler free) that the book takes a very dark view of humanity. Read it, you'll see what I mean.