Extraordinary People by Peter May

I so wanted to ‘like’ EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE by Peter May but, in the end, this one was a little too staged, with sluggish pacing. Moments that could have and should have been tense, and dramatic, were lost amid the travelogue descriptions that sucked up more than their fair share of page length. It’s all very well to set the scene, but quite another to go on and on with too much incidental detail, that it becomes tedious.

The characters themselves were under developed and, at times, a little too opaque, if not, obvious. The plodding French detective who smokes too much. The far-left leaning reporter who dresses like a film star. To the femme fatale psychologist MacLeod falls in love with who seems to be as clueless as Enzo. Never mind that one too many of the situation they found themselves in—whether finding convenient clues on Google, to someone standing on a plaque dedicated to a dead dog—were all a little to contrived for my liking.

The lead character of Enzo—has already enjoyed an amazing life with two daughters by different women, a divorced wife, a dead mistress and a drastic career change resulting in moving to another country. All this before the book even starts—sounded too much like a drop-out hippie (think Scottish comedian Billy Connolly) rather than the respected forensic specialist turned professor he’s supposed to be. And for someone who was supposed to have been at the top of his game, a specialist in his field, he doesn’t know how to use a computer, is somewhat laughable. Suspension of disbelief is stretched to the max.

Add in the fact that he’s perpetually being on the derogatory side when in the company of women, from eyeing and ogling a 23 year-old student’s breasts to lusting after a woman he’s only just met, and the ex of one of his (supposedly) closest friends. It make the man come across as lecherous. Or, as a Scot might say, a dirty old man! Maybe the author was pouring a little bit too much of himself into Enzo than is considered healthy. Either way, it didn’t endear the character to me in any way, shape, or form.

That said, if you like the simplistic kind of murder mysteries, where the befuddled hero steadfastly unravels all the arcane clues to their conclusion—contrived or otherwise—then you might like this. Otherwise I suggest you look elsewhere.