Boxer Beetle

Book Name : Boxer Beetle
Author : Ned Beauman 

What is it about : A present-day would-be detective un-raveling a war-time murder case, involving a gay Jewish boxing champ with nine toes. Along the way, beetles breeding, fascist riots, rough and tumble sex, a letter from Hitler, also tagged along.

Some thoughts after having read the book : One colloquial saying in Cantonese pretty much summed up this book : "Thunder roared loudly but the rain drops came little"... Meaning that the book promised a great conspiracy but never delivered or what was delivered came to some trivial pursuit. The great conspiracy part was the "Hitler, Eugenics, man-eating beetles, 9-toe gay Jewish boxer champ, riots and sex"; but having read the book, these boiled down to "A letter from Hitler and a rather boring country manor whodunit". The book started with great promise, setting the scene for a cat and mouse detective chase to the bottom of the "truth" but the smoking gun turned out to be merely an anonymous person on the Internet ! The book received all-round applause from the likes of Sunday Times, The Guardian etc, but I never really got the hang of it, ha hum ... not my cup of tea, may be.

Would I recommend this book to you : A quick thrill may be, but better off looking elsewhere for a good read - may it be a war-time conspiracy, a whodunit or a creepy-crawly sci-fi that you're looking for.