Oh. Ick. I mentioned in the previous posting that this did not sound like my kind of book. I like Ellery Queen. The writing is a little more hard-boiled than I like...but the stories with Ellery & Inspector Queen are more medium-hard than hard. Cop Out definitely breaks this pattern. While the Ellery Queen novels I've read in the past have been more 30s-50s in nature, this book is definitely a product of the 60s and has a mean-streets feel to it. It's not that the writing is not well done; it's just that it's not the style to which I've been accustomed and I think Queen did best sticking to what they did so well.
You have your hard-nosed, small-time gangster types. Trying to be tough and throwing their weight around with the cop that they've "put the screws" on. And then they grab the cop's kid. I hate books that put children in danger or where children are killed. I just can't take it--I'm too sensitive on that issue.
The plot works and the action is well-done. I just don't appreciate the harsher side of detective novels. Give me a good ol' British cozy. May have to take a break and read an Agatha Christie just to settle my mind. One star out of five.
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I'm with you. Too much grittiness is not a good thing.
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