Reviews

Eleven Days by Donald Harstad

taylorfarnsie's review

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? No

2.5

nocto's review

[These comments are taken from a mailing list discussion and as such are out of context (and may not make sense) and also contain spoilers.]

[on characters, setting]

I haven't finished the book and I'm not sure I'm going to so I'll wade in on the questions.

I think the characters in this book have the potential to be interesting but they just aren't seeming interesting to me. I liked the look of Mike and Dan Smith when we met them, and the despatcher Sally too but the characters seem to fade in and out and don't come to life. I'd read several chapters when I realised I didn't even know the main character's name and had to look at the back cover to find out he was called Carl. I think I'd noticed the name Carl but thought it was being applied to someone else. (It's not that I think knowing the main characters name is essential {eg Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca is better for leaving it out} but here I felt it was symbolic of the fact that I wasn't getting the hang of these people at all.)

The setting isn't coming to life for me much either. Without going and looking at the book I couldn't tell you where it was set other than somewhere in America. It's a smallish town surrounded by isolated farms and there's a big city some way away but I haven't remembered where that is and I've got no idea what sort of countryside is around about either.

[on scenes, pacing]

I've skipped the plot question because I didn't finish the book and it seems unfair to comment. Plus this question gets more to the heart of what I found to be my problem with this book.

I thought the opening scenes of this book were really good and I was very much sucked into the book and wanted to find out was happening. I thought the minute by minute style of following the police around worked really well... for a while. Everytime I picked the book up it felt like getting back on a roller coaster and for a bit I enjoyed it a lot but it started to get tedious and make me sick after a while (analogically I mean though the crime was pretty sickening anyway). I would have liked the pace to have slowed a little every now and again. I think the author tried to do this by having Carl injured for a few days but I didn't really feel any let up in the pace of the book.

I think less haste would have made more speed for me. One of the problems I had was that the book was full of a lot of the kind of nitty-gritty detail about police investigations that I enjoy, but I was careering past it at breakneck speed and not really comprehending it.

I think this is probably a case of the book just not fitting my mood at the time I was reading it. Another time I think I'd have liked the book just fine and I'm interested to see how I get on with the next book in the series.

ericwelch's review

4.0

This is a spell-binding police procedural, Harstad's first novel. According to the cover, it was based on real events, and Harstad spent twenty-six years as a deputy sheriff in Iowa where the story takes place. (Amanda White, who knows the area, tells me the characters and scenes are very realistic.)

The story takes place during the eleven-day investigation of the particularly gruesome murders of four people at a farm in rural Iowa. Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman arrives on the scene after a 911 call to discover several people dead in what appears to be some kind of ritual Satanic cult murder. Carl is a good cop with good instincts, but the department doesn't have the resources to handle the investigation by itself, so the Iowa CID is called in along with an expert from New York.
Carl recounts the investigation with its spectacular denouement in such a droll and natural manner, you can't help but warm to him. He works nights and his wife teaches during the day, so the investigation, which begins to consume more and more of his time, causes some fraying at the edges of their relationship. "When I got home, Sue was a little angry," Houseman says about his wife. "I'd neglected to leave her a note about the meeting. Consequently, supper had turned out to be a problem. She'd taken care of it by making a taco-type soup, so it was still warm when I got there. She'd eaten."

The key to solving the murder hinges on what the local pastor knows. It was his involvement in a similar crime near Elyria, Ohio that brought the killer to the area. His identity will be a complete surprise. This one will be a hard act to follow. I have ordered more of Harstad's work.