The writer is a goodish plotter he comes up with interesting ideas, but not a skilled technician as far as taking those concepts and turning them into a fun yarn that is enjoyable to read. A lot of the plot chugs along like this (and this book purports to be a mystery) plot isn’t uncovered, it’s fed plot coupons are doled out by background characters like NPCs in a video game. (By a detective!!) It isn’t stumbled upon, or deduced, it’s just programed into the characters’ mouth and comes out when required. It’s not just sloppy plotting, the book hinges on these kinds of leaps: two characters discussing the mystery? At the heart of the book (something concerning an aluminum cube I’m still not clear on and too uninvested in to go back and try to figure out) put forth a pretty ludicrous theory, and because this is (of course) the plot, it is instantly accepted as gospel truth and moved forward with without any fact checking.
He doesn’t just broadcast his secret knowledge of how he manipulates reality, he also calls up the main character to give him leads on who his accomplices are. Wait, let me stop there, cos the villain is a whole problem unto himself. The villain gives a long, tedious explanation about math theory to a store clerk. The supporting cast is worse: there are the usual suspects, mustache twirling, sneery bad guy, smug rich-guy politician, dumb cop, but the biggest offense is they’re usually just mouthpieces for wikipedia-fueled info dumps: A bookseller with no reason at all to have insight into such things goes into a long explanation of a failed attempt to rig the Irish lottery. I think maybe he's going for a boilerplate, noir-ish, rock-jawed Marlowe type, but you don’t walk away with a sense of him as anything other than a pastiche. A few chapters in I was disappointed & I've had a hard time finishing it.
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