Richard Osman – The Last Devil To Die – Book Review *** 3 Stars
Usual Fare – but missed the mark with lack of reality…
Nearly a 4 Star, as RO is a writer I like, and he has a way with him. – I try to write in his style.
But…not surprisingly, the story as usual lacks some reality…but perhaps that is what he wants.
He sums it up on P 571…all that for a little bag of heroin. Ridiculous.
I expected the narrative to be true, and hold the plot together…but it was not always the case.
Perhaps too many unrealistic and not always relevant sub plots…they should really be meaningful.
The characters, though, remain likeable and have developed, but like other reviewers note, perhaps this group has reached the end. Quit while you are ahead…well just.
Spoiler Alert!!
Me being picky, I guess, but I like there to be no plot holes and some realistic reasoning throughout…but not here. But I guess we have grown to expect it this way.
So many new people, possibly too many to mention, but I’ll try, Samantha and Garth, Mitch, Lucca, Dom, Nina, Computer Bob, Mervyn, Tatiana, Jeremmy, and Jill from the NCA, having inside men and everyone all intrinsically entwined with Afghanistan drug barons…. Happy Days.
But could it happen? Unlikely. Does it matter? Possibly not.
We are supposed to believe all the intrigue for £100k…..Nah!
Would Kuldesh really do what he did?….. I think not and so the tale falls on its arse at page one…..but I still quite liked it as a story.
But here’s the rub. The box was said to be terracotta early doors, but clearly wasn’t.
RO, you shouldn’t lie to deceive!
The initial killer, we subsequently learn, has become a professional assassin within a matter of hours of watching YouTube videos.
Must have also popped to Tesco for the gun!
And so begins the unrealistic events that slowly become revealed.
The international drug regime headed in the South of England by our rogues, suddenly having made great and intricate plans to re-establish their route to the UK, leave the box of heroin at the only open antique dealer on the day after Boxing Day and expects it to be there the next day.
The rogues go on the piss. The NCA suddenly doesn’t care where the heroin is, but Dom is supposedly being watched all the time, but wasn’t. Come on RO, holes already.
Mitch gets kidnapped and beaten up by his associate when the heroin goes missing…really? And even philosophically takes it on the chin!
Dom goes to the football, and within minutes has sussed out who Bogdan and Donna are, but must have walked back, as there was no car outside the hangar.
He was then shot, but there was no need for Chris or the assassin to break in. He was sitting in his office. Where are the lights? It must be dark by now, even with a lunchtime kick off.
Someone as smart as Dom lets an assassin kill him? But apparently the NCA were keeping him under surveillance video, but missed him being shot, but saw Chris breaking in the window. Why not just try the front door first? ….Oh dear, more holes.
Garth – ruthless one minute, old lady lover with a heart the next – just floats off having thrown Lucca off the 5th floor multistorey car park, for pointing a gun at him?
Garth, as big as an Ox, goes missing after the murder of his wife, and can’t be found? But this kind hearted killer doesn’t wait around to bury his beloved wife??
Elizabeth, though, gets Garth to entrap the killer because she says she knows who killed his wife Samantha. Twice now astute Garth has taken a slip of advice as to the killer of his wife, and both times it was wrong…really.
Garth goes along with Elizabeth’s plan, this rather than taking the box worth millions for himself??
I then can only guess he just got on Eurostar, or Ryanair, unnoticed and left the country.
Mitch going looking on a rubbish tip for the box…..come on RO, not in a million years….neither humorous, tragedy, irony or reality…
Connie, though, is still pulling the strings from prison, just like the Italian Job…more Happy Days.
Plus, now expanding her empire into the heroin business….while still murdering people who might get in her way…..but still somehow missing the big Ox. Perhaps we all have flaws?
The Afghans are supposedly smuggling in a box, that Jonjo just took on a flight and flew to Dubai and then Baghdad. Why smuggle when you can just fly Emirates?
The motor bike rider was keeping an eye on the box…but not very well. I guess RO expects readers to just accept the glib explanations, and like many today they do, giving the book 5 stars, for a plot that you could drive a bus through. But I have to admit, wonderfully written.
Everyone was supposedly so clever and then completely gullible. You see where this is going, but don’t get me wrong, it was entertaining stuff.
All the rogues are one minute hardened smart criminals, capable of killing in cold blood for no reason. The next like kids playing at it….really, and being ever so polite to four octogenarian for good measure.
RO prose is great. His modern day observations are subtle but accurate, but the facts are at times not there, and the devil is actually in the detail in my opinion.
Warwick services weren’t built in the 1960’s…it was 1996, oh and there is no link bridge. Picky me.
Some have criticised the drawn out death of Stephen, but I felt it was well written, on a sensitive and controversial subject. However, one minute Stephen appears totally lucid and the next away with the fairies. But I’m not quite sure it works like that, though. However, it tugged at the old heartstrings.
If he was at the back end of such a cruel condition, I’m not sure he would have had the nouse to inject himself…but hey ho, me being picky again.
We do, though, have a near perfect moral ending as all Thursday Murder Club mysteries; with a multimillion pound trinket now containing Stephen’s ashes resting in the place he loved in Baghdad. Ahh.
So there we have it, not bad fare as I said, but the last two books are just lacking something…but who am I to criticise?
Oh, love the addition of animals, but it’s pretty obvious RO’s best friend isn’t a dog…..
Try New Year’s Eve at Hargrove House…the latest CJ Gray Mystery…I think you will like it…..
