Murder List and Foreign Correspondent

I finished two more of my free Kindle books but then acquired three more.  I’m not sure if that counts as progress or not.

The two this time were Julie Garwood’s Murder List and Alan Furst’s The Foreign Correspondent. Of the two, Garwood’s book is the weaker. Murder List belongs to that unfortunate category where the author attempts to communicate how their characters feel by telling you rather than by portraying it through the words and actions of their characters. As a result, I never really clicked with the characters and didn’t get as immersed in the book as I might have otherwise. On the other hand, it’s very light going that requires minimal brainpower, so it’s not a bad thing to read to relax before bad after a long day.

I enjoyed The Foreign Correspondent much more; Furst does a very good job building up a compelling picture of both his characters (the foremost of which is an emigre Italian journalist) and his setting (pre-WW II Paris). While there’s not a lot of dramatic tension (there isn’t exactly danger around every corner or bullets flying everywhere) and the ending is a bit abrupt, setting the story right before the outbreak of WW II does a good job of maintaining a low-level of tension throughout the story that pushes things along. The reviews on Amazon suggest that is one of Furst’s weaker offerings, so I’m intrigued enough by this book to plan on eventually checking out some of his more highly rated works.