SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY
Three Londoners get involved with a mystery after a man is killed at a museum. Eventually they are all brought together because of a piece of paper in a wallet. But they don't all get along, especially when one claims to have seen a monster.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Eddie is a fourteen year old pick-pocket with no friends and no family.
Liz Oldfield is a young woman who lives and takes care of her elderly father, the reverend. She loves the theater and dreams of acting.
George Archer is a nineteen year old man who works at a museum.
Sir William Protheroe is an older man who works with George at the museum.
PACING
The main characters are George, Liz and Eddie. Each character gets in introductory scene and then slowly each character runs into another until all of them confide in each other about their events. Even so the pacing isn't as fast as you would expect.
Usually when the narrator goes back and forth between characters, it really helps. I found it interesting in the beginning, but it doesn't keep shooting strange scenes like the opening. By page eighty-four the characters are all together out of a three-hundred and twenty page book.
TRUSTING LIZ
When George meets Liz its revealed that he can't help but trust her. He seems infatuated but it's not portrayed like that, instead it's revealed that he feels that “Liz has a keen intelligence and obvious beauty”. But why would that make her trustworthy?
It's as though the author is forcing these characters together, when in reality George would just take the wallet and leave. Or the more obvious answer, that he would see how pretty she was and would want her to stay and would share something about himself. But revealing that he witnessed a murder would come off as showing off and lacking sincerity. It would make George unlikable. Perhaps he would mention a vague summary of events without revealing the murder.
I feel as though the scene was meant to show how amazing Liz is. After all, George imagined a middle aged spinster and got a beautiful and smart young woman. Even so, he comes off as naive and slightly sexist while she comes off as far superior.
OPPRESSED LIZ?
Eventually we see that Liz lives with her elderly father and helps take care of him.
At first, I sensed no negative feelings towards her father. Simply respect and perhaps a slight affection. But later it's revealed that Liz loves acting and has argued with her father about the theater, which he sees as frivolous and evil. This seems like a cartoonish portrayal of a puritanical patriarch. Luckily it's only mentioned in passing (though that alone is odd, because it makes it hard to feel bad for Liz).
It would be believable if perhaps we saw a good side of her father. But we barely see him at all. And even his so called ignorant attitude is simply spoken of as something that happened in the past. So we never see Liz being abused in any way, nor do we see her being kind to her father and loving him even though she thinks she is wrong. Instead we get the idea that she believes herself to be oppressed, when in reality she seems treated well. To be fair, it could be a lot worse. Liz could have been called a feminist and her father could have been portrayed far worse.
THE SEANCE & JOKESTER LIZ
George and Liz end up going to séance in an attempt to contact the dead man Albert Wilkes. Neither of them believe in such a thing and were roped into going. Turns out the whole things is scam, and Liz being the smarter of the two (we kind of figured this out before as it seems the author's intent for Liz to be the smart one) realizes this right away.
Anyway, Liz decides to play along and seems to be enjoying herself. But I was instantly confused. Her character didn't seem like a jokster at all, she didn't even seem to have that much of a sense of humor. It was as though the author was suddenly inserting a new personality. It never came back by the way. Liz never makes any jokes after this or reveals any history of pranks.
Also, it turns out a ghost actually shows up and spells out 'ORIMO'. I don't know why it didn't start at the beginning of the name at least. But it's kind of obvious who it was spelling considering the death at the beginning of the book.
USELESS GEORGE-SPOILERS
The problem is that George kind of looks dumb in a few scenes. In fact, he kind of has to be dumb. When he witnesses someone die and say a name, he assumes that person is supposed to be able to help. Sir William has to point out that he was probably saying who killed him. And later Liz points out the importance of the paper and is mad that he didn't say that all the other pages of the diary were blank. She sounds annoyed at his stupidity and he submissivly takes her insult.
Now George does prove he is not an idiot as he helps make a plan to rescue two characters. It's just that he seems kind of dumb before this. And I think it was unnecessary to make him dumb in order to elevate Liz and for the plot (so we don't learn the obvious about last words and a death).
RELATIONSHIPS
George seems to have a crush on Liz but this is never explored.
Eddie points out that Liz is close to his age but her relationship seems more motherly towards him. A few times she worries about him when he is left behind or in trouble.
Sir William is a mentor character to all the characters.
Eddie doesn't like George when he first meets him and later I guess they get on okay. George just tells him in one scene that he likes him, but doesn't explain why and I didn't understand why either. He barely knew him. If anything, all he could feel was sympathy.
The real problem these relationships feel so shallow and never develop is because these characters don't really have a history.
HISTORY-SPOILERS
Eddie vaguely mentions he has no family or home. His mom died and then he left home and came back to find his dad gone and taken his sister. There is no more mention of it after that. I wish it had been explored more.
Liz takes care of her father but should probably be married or courting someone. Why isn't she? She is described as being beautiful and smart so young men must have tried to court her. How long has she been her father's sole caretaker? Did her mother recently pass?
George has even less of a history. I can't really tell you anything about him.
ROLES-SPOILERS
When it comes to character roles each character has a different one to play.
Eddie is streetsmart and ends up being a help. He causes a distraction for George and Liz to escape. He distracts the lackies for them on another occasion. He is the one who ropes them into a séance which ends up being helpful (kinda). He also sneaks around and finds out about tunnels that help them run and hide.
George works at a museum so he has access to it as well as being interesting in machines and this skill comes into play in the finale. Liz ends up finding about the dead body and the dinosaur bone because her father the reverend is contacted when the body is discovered and she is allowed to tag along.
Sir William is the the smartest and just tends to know things. Also he finds out about a traitor in the museum and leads them to the foundry where he speculates about their villain.
OUR VILLAINS
It's eventually revealed who our villain is but we mostly see his lackies thoughout the story. In fact there is only one scene with our villain before it is revealed that he is the villian. But it's not really shocking seeing how a character died.
I didn't really develop hatred nor did I feel like the villain was interesting. I get that he's power hungry and kind of crazy but I wish I had seen it slightly more before the finale.
DEAD MEN, DINOSAURS AND SCIFI-SPOILERS
There are interesting moments throughout the book that really make you curious. For instance, in the opening we see a dead man come home for tea and to take the dog for a walk.
Later we dig up said dead man and learn that his legs are broken and his bones replaced with some dinosaur bones. Things like this really caught my attention. Unfortunately none of it comes together like I would have hoped, that is, as puzzle pieces.
WILL EXPLAINS IT ALL-SPOILERS
Sir William ends up helping the characters alot, like when he explains about the Crystal Palace. This is important because we get a fragment of paper that says something about a crystal. He notes that word Crystal is capitalized like a name.
Near the climax, Sir William explains just what Lorimore has been up to. The fact is...I felt like I never would have understood if he hadn't. I didn't feel like there were nearly enough clues to figure it out. I couldn't have an “aha!” moment because I wasn't coming up with crazy ideas for the finale.
ALBERT & GEORGE-SPOILERS
There are a few scenes where George tries to get through to Albert. But it's hard to feel anything seeing how the reader never gets to see any relationship between them. Albert is dead to begin with and we don't get any flashbacks.
CLIMAX
Two characters end up getting caught by the villain while the others plan to rescue them. We finally meet the villain and here about his plan which is quite dramatic. Eventually they all manage to stop his evil plan.
CONCLUSION
The story idea itself is decent. It's just the characters are so lackluster that I found I didn't care about them. How could I, when I knew next to nothing about them? And sometimes they weren't even portrayed consistently, like Liz.
I found most of the ideas original and interesting. I just never felt like things came together well. The story kind of felt like it was best when it tried to be a mystery while the scifi element was kind of tacked on, inserted in certain parts without much detail.
I give "The Death Collector" two and half stars.
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