Just completed this page turner ….. “The short drop” is apparently the first novel by Matthew Fitzsimmons and it’s just brilliant. I have managed to read, not speed read, but read 389 pages of this novel in just under two days. I read a couple of pages, last to last night and then the bulk of the reading last night and today in a couple of hours am done. Once you are halfway through, it’s difficult to put the book down.
It starts off innocuously with the case of a famous missing girl. In the first few chapters you really get nowhere and every lead looks like a dead end. There are three parallel tracks in the novel, till the very end. They all merge together right at the very end and like a massive jigsaw puzzle, everything settles in to form the picture. What I enjoyed the most was probably the author staying away from the staple soft porn that is injected into every novel that makes it big in recent times.
Just to contrast – I have been labouring over 1984, the classic by George Orwell for over a month now and it’s truly tough to complete that book. I wonder whether it’s because I keep drawing parallels with so many things in that book and I have highlighted something in nearly every page.
The short drop is a short read of a long novel because it’s so well written and un-put-downable !! Definitely recommended.
