When I discovered that an author's whose works I liked had written a series of books set in medieval times that were a bit of an homage to Hitchcock films, I immediately thought 'how friggin' cool is that?'
So I picked this one up and dug right in. This book is an homage to Hitchcock's Rear Window. In that movie, Jimmy Stewart plays Jeff, a photographer who is laid up in his apartment in a wheelchair with a broken leg. While there he has a front row seat to all the goings all with all his neighbors (they leave their shades open and they talk loudly). One neighbor in particular acts very suspiciously and Jeff believes he murdered his wife.
In this book, the plot is basically the same. Graeham Fox, having been sent to London by his overlord to rescue the overlord's daughter from her abusive husband, is set upon and has his leg broken. He finagles himself a room in a widow's home to keep an eye on the daughter and her husband. In the meantime he also sees other things going on in the neighborhood.
I must say the idea was a lot more exciting than the execution. This is not to say this was not a well written and interesting book to read. And the romance between Graeham and Joanna (the widow) was really well done. The problem is there is only so much you can do with a guy stuck in a room looking out a window at people. The beginning, set up and denouement were excellent. But the middle dragged.
This is where the film can do what a book can't. The main plot of both the film and the book rely on a man watching people. A film, by it's very nature, is a visual medium. It is tailor made for a plot like this. And a film like Rear Window is all about the visual.
Unless the writer of the book in question can also write incredibly visually then the a book like this is going to suffer. Ryan is a good writer and can convey surrounding and texture very well. The thing is, that didn't happen here. While, as I mentioned, the romance was nice so much of what was going on with them was internal. But when it came to the parts when Graeham was stuck in his room and the book relied on his front row seat to the goings on in the neighborhood, then, yeah, the book suffered from it. I didn't quite get the narrative punch of seeing the serialized drama of the various neighbors that a single camera shot could convey.
While I did enjoy the book, I can't say this is a real knock out the park for me.