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An Absolute Scandal
Dec. 4th, 2024 09:41 amMy year of Penny Vincenzi books continues with An Absolute Scandal, picked up at the local station book exchange.
It's set in the late 80s and early 90s, following several UK families, who are all affected by a shift in the fortunes at Lloyd's of London, where they have accounts that lead them to be liable for massive payments when the insurance policies there start to go awry.
It's largely quite breezy and entertaining, with a range of generally engaging characters - though it initially seems as if not very many of them are going to be particularly likeable. That does change over the course of the book (though several of the relationships portrayed consistently come across as quite toxic).
The book covers a lot of ground and does have a tendency to stray into summary (this happened and then this happened, rather than getting into the depth of the characters' reactions and feelings), though this does also change in the later stages.
Vincenzi has a tendency, when shifting the perspective at the start of a new section, of only referring to the characters as 'he' or 'she' for multiple paragraphs, which makes it difficult to identify who we are now following - and I found that annoying throughout (and in others of her book I've read).
There's also some lampshading, in that the journalist's editor keeps saying, "Why is anyone going to want to read about a bunch of arrogant rich people who've benefitted from massive payouts from this company for years and are now suffering a reversal - who cares?" Which did feel a bit on the the nose at times...
It also could have been about two-thirds the length, since several of the storylines in the last few hundred pages.
All that said, I enjoyed it overall - though I'm not sure I was wholly satisfied by the conclusion of all the different threads. It got more emotive and more involving once the death mentioned at the very beginning actually happened, and I felt as if several of the characters grew on me considerably by the end.
But, despite the last couple of lines mentioning Lloyd's again, the conclusion of all the aspects to do with the characters' interactions with the company kind of fizzled out, which was weird, since that was the initial impetus of the whole book...
I will be reading more Vincenzi, though - since I picked up another giant hardback by her from the station book exchange the other day!
It's set in the late 80s and early 90s, following several UK families, who are all affected by a shift in the fortunes at Lloyd's of London, where they have accounts that lead them to be liable for massive payments when the insurance policies there start to go awry.
It's largely quite breezy and entertaining, with a range of generally engaging characters - though it initially seems as if not very many of them are going to be particularly likeable. That does change over the course of the book (though several of the relationships portrayed consistently come across as quite toxic).
The book covers a lot of ground and does have a tendency to stray into summary (this happened and then this happened, rather than getting into the depth of the characters' reactions and feelings), though this does also change in the later stages.
Vincenzi has a tendency, when shifting the perspective at the start of a new section, of only referring to the characters as 'he' or 'she' for multiple paragraphs, which makes it difficult to identify who we are now following - and I found that annoying throughout (and in others of her book I've read).
There's also some lampshading, in that the journalist's editor keeps saying, "Why is anyone going to want to read about a bunch of arrogant rich people who've benefitted from massive payouts from this company for years and are now suffering a reversal - who cares?" Which did feel a bit on the the nose at times...
It also could have been about two-thirds the length, since several of the storylines in the last few hundred pages.
All that said, I enjoyed it overall - though I'm not sure I was wholly satisfied by the conclusion of all the different threads. It got more emotive and more involving once the death mentioned at the very beginning actually happened, and I felt as if several of the characters grew on me considerably by the end.
But, despite the last couple of lines mentioning Lloyd's again, the conclusion of all the aspects to do with the characters' interactions with the company kind of fizzled out, which was weird, since that was the initial impetus of the whole book...
I will be reading more Vincenzi, though - since I picked up another giant hardback by her from the station book exchange the other day!
