I hate it when an otherwise good TV show relies on terribly faulty logic to further the story. Last night’s episode of The Closer is case in point. In order to give the wannabe cop access to detailed information about cases, the writers established that there was a new web site that contained up-to-the moment details about ongoing investigations. The entire case file, in other words, including the names of suspects and witnesses. How daft and irresponsible would that be, if it were real? They rushed that detail past viewers so we didn’t get to ponder it too long, but it was crucial to the way they trapped the guy. They added the false name and address of a witness to the online case file, knowing that he was monitoring the site and would rush right over there as part of his misguided investigation. Totally uncredible. I was also bothered by the fact that no one seemed to glom onto the fact that the victim and his producers seemed guilty of arranging and committing serial date rape. The actor who played “Dick Tracy” was delightful–he really made the most of the part–and the episode had some good moments, but there were some underlying major flaws that made me dislike it overall.
Got to the point in Caught Stealing where we learn what the “dingus” that everyone is looking for is. No lacquered bird, this. It’s the midpoint of the book, and there is a very long scene where a guy who has been mostly absent from the book until now–though his actions are what got things going in the first place–explains all of the backstory to the protagonist. It’s a very long scene of exposition, punctuated only by the fact that the guy is suffering from a concussion and the protagonist is sorting through a very large pile of cash. I’m not sure that there would have been a better way to handle all this backstory, but it does tend to go on and on. Better now than toward the end of the book, I guess.
Received an ARC of Sarah Langan’s third novel–can’t wait to get into it!
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