Houses to rent in London
You're one click away from finding houses to rent in London. Visit Gumtree.

In Review

21 November 2008 22:07 BST

Traveller by Ron McLarty

Sphere, out November 1st, 288 pages, £7.99.

In a nutshell...

Compelling conversational murder mystery

What's it all about?

When struggling actor and bartender Jono Riley hears of the sudden death of his first love Marie D'Agostino, he ventures back to his Rhode Island home to uncover the secrets of a shadowy past. As Jono reconnects with old friends and the deep-seated anxieties still plaguing the broken streets of Providence, memories past converge to drive him to find the person responsible for a series of mysterious shootings that dogged his childhood.

Who's it by?

Successful actor (more the bit-part type, mind) and audio book narrator Ron McLarty made a splash with his debut novel The Memory of Running, an affectionately rendered comic road trip yarn.

As an example...

"I'm the kind of guy who relies on fleeting moments of clarity. I know that sounds like so much bull**** but it's an absolute with me. It's something I can't call up at will and sometimes it never shows at all. When it does, I feel a kind of order, a certain understanding that had eluded me in the past."

Likelihood of being made into a Hollywood blockbuster

Fairly high – McLarty's narrative twists and turns with all the complexity of an Agatha Christie classic, and though its characters might veer too close to childhood memoirs stereotypes – school bullies, replacement father figures, cheerleader girlfriends – its intricate structure of frequent flashbacks could work superbly on screen.

What the others say

"What propels the plot backward and forward is the stuff of the mystery infusing the tale. McLarty himself is a familiar face and voice from his work as a character actor and audio book narrator. He brings just the right nuances and hints of accents, gender, and age to his cast of characters. When melded with vivid reflections of place, they make his story wondrously poignant and completely real." – AudioFile

"While McLarty's writing curdles with whimsy, there's no grit or dirt among his rather pasty, sorry prose, and his cloying insistence that his readers feel with him is a constant impediment to his story." - Metro

So is it any good?

Almost. As a pure page-turner, it's undeniably successful, gripping the reader from the outset and providing ever more avenues down which a satisfying resolution could lie. A deceptively simple tale of the overwhelming sensory surge created on a trip to one's childhood is cleverly transformed into an engrossing murder mystery, with initially two-dimensional characters growing sufficiently intriguing to maintain audience interest.

McLarty's prose, however, does not smack of that of a born author, with an easy (and undeniably readable) conversational style erring too often towards genre cliches and rather formulaic tales of dramatic baseball games, schoolyard battles and inner-city racial divides. While Jono makes for an engaging, likeable protagonist, there's an over-reliance on shallow introspection and "I'm a pretty straight kind of guy" self-deprecation – he may be an actor, but it doesn't prevent a nagging sense of wishing he'd just get back to the certainly gripping plot.

While the ending manages to shock and move simultaneously, the climax feel rushed, as though we've spent too long listening to Jono's reminiscing about great meatball sandwiches or ice hockey successes, when we could have been enraptured by a genuinely puzzling mystery.

While McLarty has a fair crack at it, he's not quite up to matching the triumph of his poignant debut.

6/10

Lewis Bazley