really awful mystery

[chiangmaifalcon]

I started reading mystery The Fourth Watcher by Tim Hallinan. It is set in Bangkok and living in Thailand I decided to pick it up. It is really stupid. First of all, though the author lives in Thailand you could have fooled me. It seems like New York or Cleveland or anywhere but here. Then there is a secret service guy who acts like no one in real life. I worked with plenty of feds in my career and they are all real polite. The guy in this book would not have even made it through academy. Then at one point this spy says the secret service investigates counterfeiting but you would think the treasury dept. would do this. Everyone knows secret service is part of treasury dept., or at least it was. Mybe its in DHS now but still it was always part of treasury. Then there is an 8 year old Thai street kid who speaks English in a more sophisticated manner than my own daughter in US who has 2 masters degrees. Also there is a 6 foot tall Thai girlfriend who runs an agency for high paid maids. All the maids I know of here are very low-paid Burmese illegal immigrants. If you want to know about Thailand, crime or reality, do not read this mishmash.

 

[bosox31]

Just wanted to point out..

the secret service investigates counterfeiting, that's one of their main duties, the other being security for VIPs.

 

[chiangmaifalcon]

No my mistake I should have used quotation marks. The guy said, "you would think the Treasury Dept. would do this", like the guy is saying Secret Service is not part of treasury Dept.

 

[pettersmith]

I started reading mystery The Fourth Watcher by Tim Hallinan. It is set in Bangkok and living in Thailand I decided to pick it up. It is really stupid. First of all, though the author lives in Thailand you could have fooled me. It seems like New York or Cleveland or anywhere but here. Then there is a secret service guy who acts like no one in real life. I worked with plenty of feds in my career and they are all real polite. The guy in this book would not have even made it through academy. Then at one point this spy says the secret service investigates counterfeiting but you would think the treasury dept. would do this. Everyone knows secret service is part of treasury dept., or at least it was. Mybe its in DHS now but still it was always part of treasury. Then there is an 8 year old Thai street kid who speaks English in a more sophisticated manner than my own daughter in US who has 2 masters degrees. Also there is a 6 foot tall Thai girlfriend who runs an agency for high paid maids. All the maids I know of here are very low-paid Burmese illegal immigrants. If you want to know about Thailand, crime or reality, do not read this mishmash.

as you said that you have not found this realistic, but some time you have to enter in imagery world of the writer to feel the realist of his novel. never read any novel if are reading that one in burden. first you need to be think like a novelist to understand his words.

 

[elled]

This is really interesting and kind of disheartening to hear. I am very new here so please bear with me. I am not familiar with this author (and based on this review, maybe I should not be) but I have to wonder how familiar he or she really is with the setting and if this is a first book. I do know that the general advice for new writers is to write about a setting or something they know well. Of course, you can break those rules and do the research necessary to create a believable and accurate world. Plenty of excellent writers do. I recently published my first book (mystery-romance) and went with a world that I knew (university setting) since I am an experienced academic. Got pretty lucky, have had good reviewers, but it is a question of taste and someone else might hate the book although I hope not.
Was this book's writing, plot, etc. also not up to scratch in your opinion? The overall work just didn't cut it???? Kind of curious.
Elle