The Man Who Smiled

This book was weird. I didn’t really like it. It’s definitely my least favourite of the series. It is apparently actually the 5th book (it should come after Sidetracked), but it’s not listed in the lists in the Vintage editions. The edition I read was published by The New Press. I was not thrilled with the translation – there were a bunch of weird errors. There were also a few fact check errors and I’m not sure if they are actual fact check errors or other problems with the translation.

Reading this one out of order demonstrated how well the others are written to be stand alone books if need be. There were a few references to events in this book in The Fifth Woman and One Step Behind, but I didn’t feel like I was missing much. This book filled a few details that were nice to know and enhanced the story, but they weren’t necessary to the plots of the others.

I’m glad I read this after The Fifth Woman and One Step Behind because I disliked it enough that I may have just stopped reading the books…but now I’m waiting for the next two books to show up at the library…in the meantime, I might read some other author!