I was looking forward to this novel because of all of the advance praise it has received. I was excited to hear that this novel has been sold in 38 territories in the world, and decided that I had to give it a shot and see what all the hype was about. Here is my review:
When literary agent Peter Katz receives an unfinished manuscript called The Book of Mirrors, he is intrigued. The author of this manuscript, Richard Flynn, has chosen to write about his time in Princeton in the late 80s. He writes about his relationship with the famous Professor Wieder, who was brutally murdered in his home in 1987. The case was never solved. Peter Katz becomes obsessed with getting to the bottom of this mystery and believes that the complete manuscript will provide him with the answers. But the recollections of others is a dangerous thing… and this might be one memory worth keeping secret.
I’m going to be blunt here: I did not like this novel. I was bored the entire time I read it. After I finished, I kept wondering what it was that put me off of this novel. Was it the story? Was it the plot? Eventually, I realized that the feature that I disliked the most were the characters. There was not a single character that I liked or even cared for. The story is told from 3 different perspectives: Peter Katz, the literary agent; John Keller, a journalist hired to do research on the manuscript; and Roy Freeman, an ex-cop who was responsible for the case and still wants to solve it. None of them were interesting, and their voices were so similar that it was hard for me to distinguish them as unique entities. Apart from the characters, I felt that there was nothing special about the novel. The author didn’t really build up any tension, and the story just read flat. I mainly felt apathy throughout the entire novel and completed it for the sake of finishing it. Overall, this novel was nothing special and it left me quite disappointed. 2/5 stars for me!
Happy reading ~