‘The Man From Primrose Lane’ is a very likeable book. It’s well-written, original, tramples genre boundaries, has an intriguing mystery (maybe more than one) at its heart and is populated with memorable characters that are more than plot devices. It’s filled with scenes that are little works of art on their own: the visit to the robot factory, the incident with the pianist on the cruise ship, the bookshop meet-cute that isn’t or shouldn’t be a meet-cute, the discovery of the body, the first interview with the detective in a smoke-filled windowless room that smells of stale hot dogs. These scenes grabbed my imagination and demanded that I pay attention, maybe even applaud.

So, if it has all those good attributes, why am I abandoning this fourteen-hour book after three and a half hours?

This is going to sound odd, but I don’t trust this book. If I’m going to spend fourteen hours reading a novel, I need to be confident that both the journey and the destination are worthwhile. I suspect that ‘The Man From Primrose Lane‘ is heading off towards a complex but improbable territory that I’m not going to find satisfying, I feel like I’m watching a very long magic act or perhaps a Long Con, where the author is distracting me with good quality mainstream scenes so that the flourish at the end will come as a surprise. 

What’s wrong with that?

Nothing, if I’m reading an Agatha Christie novel where it’s all part of the fun, or even if I reading a Science Fiction mystery with a murder at its heart. 

So why is it a problem here?

It’s probably just me but I feel about this book the same way that I feel when I’m introduced to a charming, charismatic person with an agenda: defensive, untrusting, mildly offended. I see why other people admire the person but that just reinforces my aversion.

For some reason, I feel like the contract between writer and reader in this book is, well, dishonest is to strong a word, perhaps unbalanced in the author’s favour says it better.

Anyway, all I know is that the more I read, the less I believe and the more I’m looking for the lie behind the smile. That’s not fun so I’m setting this aside.

Here’s an extract from the start of the audiobook, so you can form an impression of the book for yourself.