Monday, September 29, 2008

Review: Guns will keep us together

Guns Will Keep Us Together (Bombay Assassins, Bk. 2) Guns Will Keep Us Together by Leslie Langtry


My review


rating: 2 of 5 stars
This writer lives in the Quad Cities. That is my old neighborhood and I'm glad I didn't know that until after I finished this book!



Okay, the GOOD thing about this book is that the premise of it is wonderful. Really, it is. A family of assassins, from a tradition that is some 2000+ years old, is a great idea. In the hands of a good writer, this could have been fantastic. It could have been rich and layered and....good. Instead, it is campy, and silly and ridiculous. The names of everyone is the family is a place name, to the extreme that you have characters named Delaware and whatever else? Come on. The jokes aren't funny. The dialogue is clumsy and heavy handed. The relationship between the characters doesn't exist. They talk at each other, like cardboard, instead of to each other, like people. Langtry has good ideas. The plot of this book, a family enterprise that needs to spice up its marketing, is a great jumping off point. The problem is that Langtry needs more practice taking her good ideas and turning them into good books. She has the first part down: she has good ideas for plots and for characters. She just has to turn them from silly caricatures into people. If she does that, she'll be much, MUCH, better.


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