Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The Burn Palace, by Stephen Dobyns

9780399160875
Blue Rider press, 2013
480 pp


(read in February)


The Burn Palace has all the trappings of the paranormal about it, but once you cut through the supernatural red herrings found throughout this novel, what you have left is a story about a crime. (There is one exception, which I'll get to later.) The plot winds through the book at a slow pace, but as you read, you realize that rather than focusing on the mystery at the heart of the story, the author is taking his time to examine life in a small town.  This is one of those novels you'll appreciate for the writing rather than the unraveling of the mystery and its solution, which is pretty obvious after only a short while. You can find my discussion of this book on my crime page. 

My thanks to the publisher for my copy and a huge apology for being so late -- I read this in February and then misplaced the book that I just found yesterday. Oops. 

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