ctj@msudoc.UUCP (Chris T. Johnson {of Systems}) (01/30/86)
============Food for the Line Eater==========
Dorothy McMillan's "Blackbird"
Score: Beginning: 7, Middle: 7, Ending: 7, Overall: 7
Blurb: Death Feast
The wedding party was over. The beautiful bride was a hideously blotched
and grotesquely bloated corpse. The handsome groom lay twisted on the
grass, his features frozen in the awful agony of his death. The quests
-- the distinguished men, the gracious women, the laughing children --
lifelessly littered what only a few minutes before had been a scene of
joyful celebration.
Police Inspector Warren Elliot and the hastily assembled medical
team had only one clue to the killer. A name neatly written in the
wedding guest book. "Lillian Blackbird." But they had no suspicion at
all that the honeymoon of horror had only just begun ... and that death
by "disease" would soon reach epidemic proportions...
Opinion: Good book. The story starts rapidly and continues at a good
pace. The story is written as two colliding stories. The story of
Elliot as he tracks a faceless killer. The story is of Pearl, the
killer, as she tries to become "perfect".
I found the book so exciting that I just could not stop reading. The
story follows in the wake of Hitchcock in its foreshadowing. At times
the need to warn Elliot generated so much tension I had to call for mass
dandelion break.
This is one book that I would highly recommend to anyone who likes a good
scare. It is one of the better books I have read this month. It is not
a book I would read twice, once was "bad" enough.
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Descriptions of methods:
Most books that I read seem to have three parts all of which should be
"graded" separately. The scale is 0-10 where 0 means I would have a
hard time reading it even for money. 10 means that I would want to read
the book again and again.
"beginning" is normally the "grabber" of the book. This can be the first
line, the first page or the first chapters. The "middle" starts at the
first pause in the action and continues till the just before the ending
actions of the book. The "ending" is what ever the author does to
complete the book. Some books never end and would get a bad "ending"
mark for this. "overall" is the score I give the whole book. As in
most applications, the whole can be greater (or lesser) than the sum of
its parts.
The "blurb" is included as an easy way to describe the book. I buy most
of my books on the bases of the blurb. I do understand that the blurb
can be very misleading, when that happens, I will attempt to include a
non-spoiler description.
My opinions or just that. If you don't like them feel free to send your
flames to /dev/null. I will be very happy to read any constructive
criticism you care to give. I Know I can't spell but I feed all of my
ramblings through spell so I hope the spellings don't get to bad.
/eom ctj ..!ihnp4!msudoc!ctj (Chris Johnson)
"A book a day keeps the doctor away?"stu16@whuxl.UUCP (SMITH) (02/01/86)
> > I found the book so exciting that I just could not stop reading. The > story follows in the wake of Hitchcock in its foreshadowing. At times > the need to warn Elliot generated so much tension I had to call for mass > dandelion break. > > This is one book that I would highly recommend to anyone who likes a good > scare. It is one of the better books I have read this month. It is not > a book I would read twice, once was "bad" enough. I agree. This is a good one. Try it. -- whuxl!stu16