We went to Adventures Underground again in search of older paperbacks. Little diamonds in the rough that are just waiting for me to find them. This title is newer, but it caught my attention 1) because of the owls and 2) because of the picture of the owl. I know nothing about Peter Shandy and had no idea I was in the middle of a series. It didn't matter much, but there were hints of other stories here and there.
An owl count turns deadly when a newcomer ends up dead. The group discovers he isn't who he pretended to be, and everything seems to center around Winifred Binks, the heiress to her grandfather's fortune. After that, there's kidnappings, shady deals, disguises and hypnotism.
You know what I didn't read about? Owls. There were zero owls in this book. They talk about them, but the "snowy owl" was a package of feathers on a wire? Blah. And the "owl too many" is just Shandy referring to how maybe he's counted one too many over the years. It was disappointing, since I only picked it up for the owl. It was too recent to count as one of the usual books I pick up for my experiments.
If I set aside my owl expectations, I guess the book was ok. It doesn't stand out as being super clever or anything. If anything, I was upset at certain aspects. The whole hypnotism confession is useless due to those pesky Miranda Rights. I also had the most sympathy for Knapweed. For numerous reasons, but mostly because no one seems to care about him most of the time. Toward the end, that was super frustrating. The characters just go on with their business, and Knapweed is forgotten.
I don't think I'll read more of these. I'm not sure how much owl disappointment affected my opinion, but it wasn't long before I figured out owls weren't really a main focus. From then on, I was giving it a fair shot, but it just didn't grab me. Poor Knapweed...
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