I am Pilgrim

I found this overlong and far too pleased with itself, but my primary annoyance with the whole thing was the weird and distracting authorial voice. It's all narrated first person - even the sections that are describing what the other characters are thinking. Perhaps among the amazing skills Pilgrim constantly alludes to though rarely demonstrates is telepathy? Not to mention the fact he also describes in perfect authorial detail exactly how the bad guy set up the crime despite repeatedly pointing out that he was so clever and hidden that no one knows anything about him and that he's a ghost... I found it SO JARRING.

The author - as is pointed out in the eager full page ‘summary' at the start, and at the end a nauseating 3 page acknowledgements, smug ‘note' AND sycophantic Richard and Judy ‘interview' - was a screenwriter, so presumably he's writing from the perspective of the camera. Where in a film the camera can cut to another scene with other characters, off he goes, describing everything, but not as a dispassionate authorial voice. No, he's still the main character! How about some third person Terry? Didn't they teach it at scriptwriting school? Or - gasp - more than one first-person narrator?

And what classic movies has he had a part in? Vertical Limit with Chris O'Donnell, one of the most awful and unrealistic films ever made.

That's not even to mention that the whole murder investigation in the middle of the novel is based on the knowledge of the time of death of the victim because “his cellphone was in his pocket and the clock stopped when he smashed onto the rocks.” Oh yeah, those modern cellphones with the ANALOGUE CLOCK FACES that stop when they get smashed.

This probably deserves 3* but the aggravation these factors caused (where were the editors?!) have driven me to dock one additional star as a stupid tax.