Status Updates From Zagubiony blask (Harry Bosc...

A final plot twist allows the author to advocate killing his disabled character. The quadriplegic ex-cop is no longer a tragic victim but an evil spider and a moral “black hole” and B encourages the wife to “free yourself… you know how”. This is so disturbing. He goes from worrying about the wife abusing his friend to encouraging her to kill him.

Two books in a row that resolve with the bad guys conveniently killing each other…this feels like lazy plotting!

The villains laundered their $$ through a string of nightclubs staffed by bartenders who are female yet described as if they were gay men (crew cuts, bulging nipples in mesh shirts, obscene misogynistic tattoos). A weird swirl of imaginary depravities.

It’s 2004? 2006? And a librarian is explaining how to do a keyword search in a digitized newspaper archive.

This book isn’t even 30 years old but it’s such a tech time capsule. The missing FBI agent was a cyber specialist which means she was making and using a database of serial numbers of stolen bills.

The description of the disappeared FBI agent is unintentionally comical… we are told twice that she was “attractive”; she was flattered that a gas station cashier told her she didn’t need to drink Diet Coke; she was tall and fit from Tae Bo workouts; she had 4% body fat. She evolves from a regular person to a femme superhero over a few pages!

The scene with the quadriplegic former detective becomes offensive. The descriptions are dehumanizing and situation contrived for maximum bleakness. The author has stacked the deck completely to paint a picture of this character’s life as not worth living, he’d be “better off dead,” his partner who died in the shooting was “the lucky one”, he’s begging friends to kill him. Ableist propaganda

Red flag, this plot with $2 million being stolen off a movie set seems ludicrous. An obvious scam. Like the whole movie project was probably a cover for the robbery. The director’s “realism” justification is absurd.

I hate the first person narration immediately.