The Critic: The Enzo Files, Book 2

I down-loaded this book because I'd greatly enjoyed the author's The Blackhouse and The Lewis Man. But I was disappointed by The Critic. It's a curious mix of a very slow detective novel weighed down with far too much detail about the processes involved in wine making and tasting. I'm actually very interested in these subjects but would prefer to read about them in a book by a real expert. As a scientist I was a bit irritated by some erroneous 'facts'.
The sex scenes seem grafted in to make the book a bit racier and the author seems obsessed by women with large breasts, which proliferated through the book!

Peter May always delivers a good quality detective drama with a human warts and all hero who is human and fallible; not at all like the indestructible heroes of some detective stories. The plot moves fast, the characters are well sketched and have depth. The story is believable and I enjoyed every minute of it. Especially good is the French background, where Peter May obviously knows his France.

The hero of this series Enzo takes us on an exploration of the French wine growing industry as the backdrop to a murder mystery. A wine critic turns up dead in a barrel of red wine and Enzo supported by his assistant from the University and his daughter and her 'muscle bound' boyfriend solve the mystery of missing persons where the local police have failed to.
This was the second in the Enzo series and although informative about wine growing, I found it lacked tension and excitement despite the best efforts of the author. It does not live up to the first Enzo novel. That said it was a good plot and there was no way of identifying the killer before it was disclosed at the end of the book and that was good. One senses that we are being prepared for twists and turns in the fortunes of Enzo's family and romantic relationships as characters from the first book are woven into this story although they do not play key roles to the plot. I wil however want to read the next in the series ... just to see what happens!

We have enjoyed Peter May's writing style and other characters very much. His first Enzo book was just as good as the Lewis series. This one however was totally spoilt by James Adams' narration. We no longer have a Scottish Enzo but an English one and the French is more 'Allo 'Allo meets Inspector Clouseau. We were in fits of giggles quite regularly. The story is a little protracted in some areas and we were willing it along and the regular mentions of large breasts were becoming predictable. I'm sorry to not have liked this one and we will be moving on to the next Enzo book with the relief of being back with Simon Vance!

I haven't finished the book yet but so far I am enjoying it and am quite happy with the wine making details. However I made the mistake of listening to this immediately after the first Enzo book. Somehow Enzo has gone from a believable Scot to a rather plummy Englishman. Maybe if you listened to this book in isolation it wouldn't matter so much but I am finding it quite distracting from the plot. A case of try before you buy perhaps. Glad to see that the other Audible offerings in the series are back to the original narrator.