Thank you, thank you to Michelle at Simon and Schuster for sending me this book.
TITLE: Show No Fear
AUTHOR: Perri O'Shaughnessy
GENRE: Legal Thriller
DATE; December 2008
RATING: 3 stars
I have been a huge Perri O’Shaughnessy fan and an even bigger Nina O’Reilly fan for years and years.
It has been a while since we have caught up with Nina and now the O’Shaughnessy sisters have finally written another installment. Except that this book, Show No Fear, is a prequel to all the other books. Its basically the book that details Nina’s life in her mid-twenties including her early days in law school and her life as a single mom (Bob is but a toddler in this one). We also get to find out a lot more about Bob’s father and Nina’s mother – who is quite ill as we read the opening chapter.
Things are not going very well for Nina – her ‘useless, vain ex-boyfriend’ and Bob’s dad has decided to fight her for custody of Bob, Nina’s mother is quite ill and out of this will come a malpractice lawsuit that Nina will have to bring forward on behalf of her mother. Matt is a teenager here and absolutely useless – so basically, unlike in the later novels, Nina is pretty much on her own here.
It has been a while since we have caught up with Nina and now the O’Shaughnessy sisters have finally written another installment. Except that this book, Show No Fear, is a prequel to all the other books. Its basically the book that details Nina’s life in her mid-twenties including her early days in law school and her life as a single mom (Bob is but a toddler in this one). We also get to find out a lot more about Bob’s father and Nina’s mother – who is quite ill as we read the opening chapter.
Things are not going very well for Nina – her ‘useless, vain ex-boyfriend’ and Bob’s dad has decided to fight her for custody of Bob, Nina’s mother is quite ill and out of this will come a malpractice lawsuit that Nina will have to bring forward on behalf of her mother. Matt is a teenager here and absolutely useless – so basically, unlike in the later novels, Nina is pretty much on her own here.
Through all of the goings on, Nina will also find herself caught up in a suspicious case in which a woman ‘has fallen’ off a bridge. There is a lot going on in this book– and because we are reading about ‘young Nina’ I had a hard time reconciliating the ‘older Nina with the younger one’. I am use to a spunky, determined, confident Nina and, of course, this is not the Nina that we find here. Yes, you see the beginnings of Nina’s personality and fight developing – which I thought was probably the most interesting aspect of this book – you can just see it slowly blooming – but something was missing for me.
The other issue I had is that as a rule, I don’t like prequels – I always feel it very jarring to read, about a much-loved and well established character, backwards. Matt is a great example of this – in Show No Fear, he is so irresponsible, that I actually actively disliked him – whereas in the other books, he is one of my favorite characters. I also found myself missing many of the characters in the books that I have grown accustomed to.
Yes, there is something to be said for being able to see the characters grow – but I prefer to do it in a normal chronological time span.
Yes, there is something to be said for being able to see the characters grow – but I prefer to do it in a normal chronological time span.
As for the suspense in this book, its okay – the storyline of the girl and the bridge feels almost incidental to everything else that is going on in this book – there is too much and yet at the same time, I felt oddly let down.
1 comment:
I've read every book in this series and was looking forward to this one. Normally, I don't mind prequels. Your review was very good. I am still going to read the book anyway but maybe now with a much more critical eye.
Thanks for sharing.
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