A Simple Act of Violence -- Take 2

Of the mysteries I've read lately looking for a keeper, this one was the most ambitious.

I like the use of multiple perspectives. The two stories start out disparate, and come together as the story moves along.  That was a nice feature.  Not quite an unreliable narrator, but the multiple voices remind you that things aren't always what they seem. 

I did have a few specific complaints during my reading experience. My biggest beef with the craft of his writing is the use of sentence fragments. One here or there is okay, but there were too many, especially closer to the beginning of the book. Maybe they were intended to push the plot along, because once it got going in its own right, there were fewer fragments. But mostly I just found it to be irritating.

There was also missing punctuation, and occasionally a missing word, typically at the end of paragraphs or chapters. This may have been a formatting issue in the publication of the ebook, but it's nevertheless distracting to read.

My biggest frustration, which is entirely my own fault for going into this reading experience blind, was how political this book was.  The backstory is historically political, with the implications running through to the present day.  I'm just not into politics right now, so I wasn't really there for that part of it which, unfortunately was the whole motivation for the "simple act of violence."  Something was lost on me there, but at least it was an engrossing race to the end of the story.