Review: The Wire Noose

The Wire Noose by Erik Buchanan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book has a couple of non-fatal flaws, which appeared early on. Firstly, I had to double-check that this is Book 1, since there's a lot of expository backstory that sounds like "previously on...". I believe there's a prequel as a mailing list magnet, which explains why a lot of significant-sounding past events are summarized in what's marketed as the first book in the series.

The author also makes the classic stumble of introducing a large number of people at once (many with similar names - most characters' names end in -th, and those that don't all seem to end in -0), so that by the time any of them did anything I'd forgotten who they were.

Other than that, it was an entertaining fantasy mystery with a capable, determined and compassionate young female protagonist (who, quite appropriately, gets into trouble with her boss for going off without backup or telling anyone where she's going). The pacing worked well, with some suspenseful action scenes and a good progression of the mystery's solution through the book. The clues were there in plain sight but not so spotlighted that I solved the mystery before the character did, so well done on that too.

I will be looking out for sequels; the author and the character both show promise.

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