The Memory Collector (Jo Beckett, #2)

by Meg Gardiner

[ibeforem]

When I first discovered Meg Gardiner, I rejoiced. But I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with this book. I really like Jo and Gabe, but this was just lacking something. She does do one interesting thing, creating a bad guy (Ian Kanan) that you feel a great deal of sympathy for. However, I think "Slick" was just a little too out-there, the nano-technology and its effects a little too complex to know if it’s something that’s plausible or not. I mean, it already erases your short-term memory, does it have to explode too? Plausibility is really a key component of a suspense novel for me – could this situation really happen? If the answer is "no", then where is the suspense? Also, it seemed like Gardiner relied on similes a little too much. If you search the book on Amazon for the word "like", you come up with 199 instances. I’m willing to bet that at least 75% of them are used in phrases like "like a lighthouse searchlight", "like bulbs in a tumble dryer", and "like a swimmer off the blocks". I can’t recall the other two books I’ve read, The Dirty Secrets Club and China Lake, being so overloaded with similes, so I’m not sure if this is something she always does or if I’m just more attuned to it right now because I’ve been doing a lot of reading about writing lately. Either way, it left me feeling a bit empty.

If this is your first Meg Gardiner book, don’t give up on her. She’s done so much better. Hopefully this is just a bump in the road.