Watching: Volume 1, The Garden Museum Heist by Jeffrey Jay LevinMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Contrary to some other reviews, I found it quite easy to put down and not pick up again. The story itself had promise and originality - a man suddenly becomes able to see through time, and witnesses details of a connected series of past crimes - but the execution fell short for me. Also, as a matter of personal taste, it was more violent than I was prepared for. When I see "heist" I think "clever theft," not "multiple gang murders, including innocent bystanders".
The prose is often not smooth, and mundane details are overexplained.
There are sections in present tense, set in the past, and sections in past tense, set in the present; this isn't as confusing as it sounds, and is a good choice by the author, because the present-tense sections, representing the viewpoint character having an intense experience of viewing another time, give a greater sense of immediacy and immersion. However, in the pre-publication version I received via Netgalley for review, the author frequently - and I mean frequently - messes up the tense, dropping into past tense in the present-tense sections and vice versa. Maybe relics of a revision? In any case, an extremely basic thing to get wrong, and I found it constantly distracting.
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