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A review by adityasundar
The Subtle Serpent by Peter Tremayne
3.0
It's my first venture into the Sister Fidelma series, and I was quite intrigued by the setting of a mystery in medieval Ireland. I enjoyed the author's nuanced ways of blending in Irish customs and the discrepancies of the churches into the story via character discourses. For a good majority of the book, the author takes his time to use the mystery as a fuel to soak us into the world, weaving his red herrings and the cast of eccentric characters. It's almost a character essay, and I enjoyed every bit of it. And then, in the third act when the other shoe starts to drop, Fidelma puts on her Miss Marple-esque hat, and all that magic just deflates.
It is, perhaps, this sudden change in the treatment of the story, narration-wise, that makes the final, customary detective-reveals-it-all speech tedious and convincing only in places. Fidelma is an astute observer and bright spirited, but I think the story could've used a more powerful manner of revelation in the end, something in line with the authorial voice that the book had at the start.
It is, perhaps, this sudden change in the treatment of the story, narration-wise, that makes the final, customary detective-reveals-it-all speech tedious and convincing only in places. Fidelma is an astute observer and bright spirited, but I think the story could've used a more powerful manner of revelation in the end, something in line with the authorial voice that the book had at the start.