Misha Handman

Note: I received a free, pre-publication copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a detective story, set in world with some supernatural, or fantasy, elements. The author borrows J. M. Barrie's story of Peter Pan's Neverworld and sets it down on an island someplace on earth. Like the original story, getting to Neverworld is a mysterious process. However in this story adults, not just children, are able to travel back and forth. Neverworld has the magical elements just as in the original, and there are fairies, and the pirate Captain Hook really did live there in the 19th century.

The story is narrated entirely by a detective, Basil Stark, who was formerly the first mate of Captain Hook. Fate intervened, and forced him to reject pirating in favor of a simpler, more ethical life. A business man asks Basil to find a missing person, a young woman he'd been having an affair with, and this begins a tale involving organized crime, murder, and the stitchers of the book's title.

Telling the story entirely from the detective's point of view has some drawbacks. The advice “show don't tell” is frequently given to writers. In my opinion, this book is “telling” too often and not “showing” enough. Several of the characters are not expressed as clearly as they would have been, if the point of view were more flexible. The exception to that is the fairy, Glimmer. She is very entertaining. But her interactions with the detective involve no speaking, only body language, and somehow that is more successful than the dialog between the detective and the other characters.

I liked the author's description of Neverworld when it is proposed as a real location on earth:

“For several years, drunk on the promise of pixie dust refineries, weaponized mermaids, and the possibility of eternal youth, investment in the form of both money and immigrants rushed into the newly-founded colony. But with each passing year, it became increasingly clear that there had been a flaw in the original plan. Magic can’t be reproduced, which is why it is magic, and Neverland’s magic in particular was based on innocence and childish games; spotty at the best of times, it was largely useless when put up against cold, hard reality. The vaunted timelessness that once held the island collapsed.”

The story was interesting. However, the secondary characters needed to be given more life on their own. I think their development may have been constrained by writing only from the lead character point of view.… (plus d'informations)

I will say right off the bat that I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I am grateful to the publisher for the opportunity to read this book!

The world is pretty rich here, and I will give the author credit that there are "Native" characters here who are allowed to just be characters; I would say, given the source material, there's no real way of escaping racist aspects of the world, but Handman doesn't lean much further into stereotypes so that's kind of refreshing. The mystery was pretty compelling, with many twists and turns, and I had it figured out (loosely) by the end--not in a frustrating way, but just in that satisfactory "ah the pieces have come together!" way of a solid mystery. (ymmv on that--I'm not super familiar with mystery as a genre so it's an Accomplishment when I "solve" a mystery.) All in all, not a bad read!… (plus d'informations)