Book Review for A Song for the Dying, by Stuart MacBride

★★★

Review note: this is a sequel to another book of the series I have but haven’t read yet. I didn’t realise they were part of a series and ended up reading them in the wrong order. It caused a bit of confusion, but at the same time, the book was written in a way that it conveyed what had previously happened without having to stop and go to the other book. I realised it was the sequel about 70% of the way through and so just finished it.

What I thought it would be going in:

Standard mystery/crime. I haven’t read a lot of crime and mysteries, so I more or less expected an extended episode of Bones, NCIS, Law & Order etc.

My initial impressions:

I didn’t like the main character. There’s an archetype of middle-aged male detectives that I just don’t like (I’ve mentioned this before about the female archetype) and it results in me finding it hard to sympathise with the character and extra annoyed when they do things that aren’t great.

You can also find some of my impressions from a previous post: Read and Reading.

My final impressions:

I enjoyed it. If I didn’t already own it, I probably wouldn’t buy it, but I do think I’ll read the rest of the series. The twists and turns were a balance of obvious and left-field. I’ve watched a lot of TV mysteries, and so I can often guess what is going to happen, but I did find myself on the fence a lot when trying to figure out who the murderer was.

What I liked most:

The relationship between the main male character and main female character was refreshing. It wasn’t some tense of tragic past love, and wasn’t some blazing-but-going-to-extinguish-by-the-climax love, it was more a father-daughter companionship type of relationship, and it’s what stopped me from being jarred by some of the stereotypes.

What I disliked most:

The brooding male detective. In my previous post, I talk about how I know why they’re like that, but there’s only so many times I can read it as a “new character”. Because I didn’t mind the main character by the end, I think I’ll be fine to read the rest of the series, but there’s still something about the character type that just really makes me grind my teeth. Possibly because it’s the male equivalent of the female one, and that’s probably one of my most dislike stereotypes.