by Michael Marshall

isbn: 0515134279
subject: Fiction and Literature
finished: 12/30/2002

Since I usually leave home with more material than I could possibly read on a given trip, I rarely buy books at airports. However, after flipping through The Straw Men during a layover, I was sufficiently intrigued to give it a try. It's a crime novel with two parallel stories. The first is better developed and follows a man who discovers some oddities following his parents' deaths. In the second, an FBI agent and her former partner track down a serial killer. Towards the end of the book the plotlines converge.

This is an enjoyable book: it's intelligently written, tightly plotted (until the end), and has a good premise. The weakest element stems from Marshall's tendency to have the plot drive the characters rather than vice-versa: people end up doing illogical things and the back-story falls apart in several places. Still, this is a decent thriller, worth a quick read.