Jesse Kellerman

My first warning should have been the lengthy flashback that came early in the book and provided a fairly uninteresting backstory for the character. Worse still, the backstory did not impact the overall story to the extent given in the telling.

The main character is a snobbish professional student who spends an extraordinary amount of time agonizing over trivia matters. Suddenly, when faced with a life threatening situation, he changes into a cold-blooded killer. The shift is abrupt and so complete as to sound like an entirely different person from one half of the story to the next.

Adding to the problems of almost implausible character behavior is the audiobook narrator’s mispronunciation of several words.

What saves the story from a single-star rating is the interesting, if self-involved theme, and the old woman who dies.… (més)

The Golem of Paris is an excellent book. It is a continuation of The Golem of Hollywood. The book is a Jewish story of forgiveness. The story is one that is complicated taking place in Los Angeles and Paris, France. Although there are good guys and bad guys. This book is not one for people who do not understand Judaism, the fight of the Jewish people in Eastern Europe and the struggle of a son solving a crime that happened to his mother. Five stars were awarded to this book for its creative storyline, and tremendous research that went into the history of the golem.… (més)