Career of Evil

Hrm, this was good, another really quick read (blasted through all 500 pages while on my vacation in Norway). But, having just finished “The Silkworm”, I would rate this slightly lower, maybe 3.5 stars. Whereas the last book focused mostly on the case, this one focused mostly on Robin and Strike, their back stories and their relationship. I'm not sure if that was a good thing or not. While I liked learning more about them, I thought it came at the expense of the interestingness of the case. Plus, the writing felt really forced. The characters kept alluding to their supposed feelings for each other as asides, which didn't fit in with the rest of the storyline, it felt abrupt like it was shoved in there after the fact.

Also, I felt the “case” (if you can call it that) was less interesting in this novel. We didn't get to meet any of the suspects in person until halfway through the book or more, which really weakened the impact. Also, because of the nature of the case and the plot, all three of the suspects were similar in build and personality, which made it hard to keep them apart in my mind.

The novel ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger, excited to see where the next one heads! It's been a while since I've read two books of a series back to back, it felt good!