What do I think of this book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I am a great fan of detective fiction and so I got this one looking to see if there were any stories of detectives on the spectrum. I happen to enjoy the series Monk with the detective who has extreme OCD which helps him greatly with his sleuthing, but creates numerous hindrances not just for him, but for everyone around him. Of course, the great challenge in a mystery show or novel is the goal to try and find out if you can solve the case before the detective can.
So I got this book to see what the aspie detective is like. The only other well-known one I can think of is L from the series Death Note. Thus, I wanted to see if this is someone who would remind me of L or be quite different.
In the series, Bradley lives on Baker Street in England and has made it his goal to be the next Sherlock Holmes. He has an assistant who he regularly calls Watson to match with what he calls resonance, where he gets into the mindset of thinking that he is Sherlock Holmes. He has also taken it a point to memorize a number of smells and locations in London as well as the history and train schedules.
Despite all he does in the area of deduction, he has a great weakness from his being an Aspie in that he cannot read emotions. He has a solution for that in that he has glasses that were designed for him that connect to the internet and can tell him the mood of the person he is talking with based on their facial expression. This is a weakness I can resonate with as it can be hard to read people and also with his weakness of knowing if someone is being sarcastic or not.
He has technology in other areas as he has drones that follow him overhead constantly that send him feedback of the area around him including items like footprints and can warn him of any intruders. When he is emotional, he can get extremely expressive of that as well. He also carries a walking stick not because he is disabled in that area, but because it is designed in such a way to be a weapon if need be.
Despite that, while the story was alright, the mystery function just wasn’t as much there as I would like. It was hard to picture the environment and it did depend on several aspects that the reader could not see and know about. As a result, I wasn’t going to bed at night thinking about what I had read and trying to find out who the culprit was, which as I said is always the joy of detective novels.
To be fair, this was the one that was setting up the series. I am not adverse to reading another one and I probably will do so if it comes out, but if so, i hope this one is someone that involves the reader in using their logical skills to reach a conclusion. That can be done while still showing the aspie nature of the detective.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
Support Deeper Waters on Patreon!
