The Alligator's Farewell by Hialeah Jackson
1999, 360 pages
Sometimes, one thing about a book bothers me from the get-go, and I have trouble removing myself from that, and the Alligator's Farewell was one of them. The premise is intriguing, a man working in a nuclear research lab dies, and the body is horribly irradiated, and the head of the security firm is trying to determine how he died, and why. Unfortunately, the assistant rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning, Dave was too over the top and silly, wearing women's shoes, and acting both flamboyantly gay, and super macho depending on what was called for. The authors name also annoyed me, as her real name is Polly Whitney, and she has chosen such an improbable name for some reason. Maybe there's a great explanation, but having that outlined on the back cover, it just had me wondering the whole time I read it, why she chose that pseudonym. In fact, it was probably a more engrossing mystery than the actual book. The main character was creative, as she's a sexy knockout who's also deaf, but it seemed like a gimmick that really only affected her when it needed to for the story, otherwise she could read lips just fine, and somehow drove at breakneck speeds while Dave signed conversations with her....
Typically, a book takes me a couple of days to read. I started this one on the 2nd of February, and didn't finish it until the 23rd... Now, we were pretty distracted at the time, but that's still a pretty long time to slog through it.
2/10
Next - Lost Lake, by Phillip Margolin
P.S. This was written while under the influence of a brewing migraine, so it may be more scattered than usual.
P.S. This was written while under the influence of a brewing migraine, so it may be more scattered than usual.
3 comments:
I wish I knew you when I attended college. You could have read all the books and told me what I needed to know. As for this one, I'm sure that your review is all I'll ever read of The Alligator's Farewell. Any particular reason for the odd title?
It was the name of a bar in the swamp... I think.
I actually think it was chosen because the author wants to have Farewell in the titles of this series, like "The Cat Who" series, and how Cathy Reich's books usually have the word "Bones" in the title. It didn't really apply to the storyline that I can remember.
I would have been honored to read your homework in college, I'm a pushover for that kind of thing. Of course, I was probably... what, 15 at the time?
My college days were 1977 to 1980. You can do the math, but I think you were younger than 15. However, it's nice to know that you might have helped. I spent a lot of nights reading college books -- many worse than ones you read and report on.
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