DEATH OF A NURSE (11 october 2004)
Why are some books more readable than others?
There must be a driving force that keeps a reader turning pages. A book that possesses a lot of this driving force is sometimes referred to as a page turner.
page turner ;)
For some people, the urge to turn pages can be so strong that they take a peek at the last pages to see how the book ends. To be honest, I don't understand why anybody should want to take away so much of the incitemeny of a book.
In the category of page-turners, Ed McBain's book Death Of A Nurse is a candidate for the top ten. McBain shuns no means to prevent the reader from finding out how the book will end.
The all-pervading motto of the book seems to be No delay, no play. Whenever we are about to learn anything more about the killer, McBain goes out of his way to postpone the actual revelation.
When, occasionally, the story is told from the point-of-view of the killer, McBain does not use the killer's name or other clues that could reveal his identity.
I bought the book second-hand, and was surprised to find it had belonged to R. Geus -- the same name that I had found in another book by Ed McBain (click). Once again, Mr R. Geus wrote in the book that he'd liked it a lot. What I found quite charming was that he gave away a bit of his own personality by underlining this sentence: A man should be quiet in the morning. A man should come to terms with life again slowly.
I agree with R. Geus in that I found the book quite readable. But I sometimes found the way in which McBain continuously delayed the action in his book somewhat overdone.
One may wonder if McBain himself was not completely satisfied with the book because he first published it under the pseudonym Richard Marsten.
