I'm
onto something, I think. I think I'm onto why a certain number of the
Amazon “customer reviews” for Ed McBain's novels are so negative.
There are always a few negative ones posted by readers so
disenchanted by whichever McBain novel they've just tried to enjoy
they must go on record. One star, two, maybe even three. This is
always the case. Always. It's always the case.
The
rest, the great majority of the customer reviewers, award five stars,
with a smattering of fours. The fours I think are by readers
intending to appear smart and discriminating. They simply will not be
stampeded by emotion into awarding five stars for a genre novel even
if they secretly loved it to death. Four stars is as high as they'll
go--ever--unless to oblige the author, or the book is so obscure
they're really awarding the five stars to themselves, for coolness.
Aside
from the tiny faction of cranks who can always be found at the bottom
of a review list in the one-or-two-star strata trashing whatever the
book, because it's what they do, the negative reviewers I'm talking
about, the ones I think I'm onto, I think were genuinely nonplussed
by the book they're damning with scant stars. They were dismayed and
disappointed, they felt cheated, condescended to, culled and
excluded. They chose an Ed McBain novel expecting a good, methodical
cop story by a world-recognized master of the form.
