The Fixer by Joseph Finder

 

This is an author whose name I see around among thriller novelists, and I figured I'd pull a novel and check it out, and ... it's not entirely garbage, there are moments when the story sticks and grabs and maybe pulls a little, generates some momentum. Most of the novel, though, is like someone fingerpainting parts of a life and/or lifestyle he can't really imagine; there aren't really any genius characters, here, but much of the writing reminds me of someone who's kinda average-ish intelligence trying to write a supergenius: it's just off, and you can tell. Of course, I haven't lived any of the lives that are in this novel, either, so it's possible I'm wrong about that, but the prose is mostly thick and smeary and the main character spends the first half-ish of the novel as smug and shallow and self-centered and almost as annoying as the main character in last night's novel (though fortunately there's just the one of him, that probably makes a big difference). At least now I know I can go back to ignoring his books on the library shelves.