Book Log 24/2016 - Tim Powers: Down and Out in Purgatory

[jacey]

I read this as a review copy from Netgalley.

Tom Holbrook is a man bent on revenge. The girl he loved in college, Shasta, married John Atwater instead of him. Atwater eventually murdered her and got away with it in court. Holbrook has spent the last six years of his life hunting Atwater down, only to be thwarted by Atwater dying, inconveniently, of natural causes. Not to be deterred Holbrook arranges to have himself shot and follows Atwater to purgatory where he intends to wipe out Atwater's ghost as well.

Weird? Yes. A bit too surreal for me, I'm afraid. I've never liked overly long strange dream sequences and most of this novella feels just like that. The ending is a little predictable, but that doesn't really detract. The writing is elegant, as I would expect from Tim Powers, but ultimately, though I wanted to like it, I found this unsatisfying.