On the other hand, I would not want to be without Mark
Twain's review of
Fenimore Cooper, possibly the most murderous mauling a famous
author has
suffered at the hands of another famous author. But if I
wanted to learn
what Cooper's novels were all about, I would rather have
Updike tell me
about them.
To get back to mysteries: I don't often read reviews, since I
prefer to
draw my own conclusions and get most of my recommendations by
word of
mouth (for example, from this list). My complaint about the
occasional
reviews that I do read is that most of them are simply a
summary of the
book, with a blurb-like "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" final
paragraph. I
like to see an author placed in perspective within the genre,
and
compared or contrasted with other authors. Again, I am a very
casual
reader of mystery reviews and for all I know I may be missing
all the
good ones.
Regards,
mt
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