Playing Catch-Up: The Lincoln Diary

I read this as my first self-published book-of-the-week. As the cover would suggest, it was simply dreadful. I picked up for free, although the author wants $5.99 for it now!




REVIEW (2 stars):

This book was a chore to finish, although I did finish it. I picked it up for free, and I am glad that I did, because it is extremely poorly written, with structural issues as well as issues of language.

First, in terms of the structural issues, the pacing is terrible. The book is very slow moving at the beginning, and while it does pick up near the end, it doesn't pick up enough to deliver an interesting read. In addition, dialogue is difficult to get right for even the most proficient authors. Mr. Fowler's dialogue is wooden and unconvincing. His characters never rise above stock, sterotypical characterizations. More specifically, in more than one area, he indulged himself in some fairly obviously anti-Conservative rants. The fact that I agree in principle with the content of the rants notwithstanding, their presence in this book was a cheap plot device to convey the "badness" of the character.

Second, the word choice is often wrong, or weird. Other reviews have noted his constant mispelling of b-line, instead of beeline. In addition, a small smattering of some of the weirdness included "But that didn't stop Sarah's questions from having minds of their own," "she had to fold herself up like a pretzel to slink down the aisle," windows that were "batted" down, and "long, poised strides." None of these images make any sense at all. Questions don't think. No one slinks like a pretzel. Windows are battened down. Strides can certainly be long, but they aren't poised. People are poised.

Finally, in terms of the content, this book has almost nothing to do with Abraham Lincoln, except for a few Lincoln facts that are scattered as total non-sequiturs throughout the book. It is a standard, if poorly written, murder mystery with an amateur sleuth who plays lacrosse and is, of course, way smarter than the "Keystone Kop" detective who is actually investigating the homicide. The police procedural aspects of the book are inaccurate and, at times, silly.. One of the reasons that I selected this book was because I am a bit of a history dork, and I thought that the historical aspects of the book might make it interesting -- sort of National Treasure-ish, if you will. It has almost nothing to do with the actual content of "Lincoln's Diary."

Overall, I cannot recommend this book, even for free. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of books available for the kindle that are much better than Mr. Fowler's freshman foray into publishing. While I suspect that this review will be poorly received given the number of five-star reviews that were submitted by individuals who are not verified purchasers, I did buy this book, and I did read it in its entirety, as difficult a task as that turned out to be.