I do content writing for web; I don’t get to be a writer, actually. I could say that I am a copywriter. So, from this tiny window, criticizing a serious writer seems blasphemous to me.
However, what I have been for as long as I can remember is a reader. Fervent, fierce and constant.
La Carcoma is a crime novel by Spanish author Daniel Fiopiani. It grabbed me and I enjoyed it. And I thank him for putting in the batteries to write it.
To this day, I continue to read in every way possible, in writing, or by audio. I get caught by well-written novels, creative metaphors, unexpected similes, those that tell you that “her skin was like a sheet of water, shiny and transparent”, or “the drop fell like a bullet on the still surface”.
Woodworm is one of those. An imaginative writer line by line. With a good story. Watch out for SPOILERS to come. Daniel F. takes us by the hand inside this brutal, hostile and disconcerting town with two unlikely characters: a policeman and a writer lost in himself.
The first thing is that, they are implausible, but in that way that life is implausible, the kind that makes you say “I wouldn’t believe it in a novel, but that’s how life is” and in the end you believe it.
You believe it so much that you devour the lives of Ramses and Loredo (Javier Loredo Bellido). The latter has the disconcerting gift of a disorder called “rotacism”, which, due to a malformation or absence of the tongue brake, causes difficulty in articulating the “R” sound. hearing him in the book is more than hilarious, somewhat unexpected, at first it may cause a smile but as you get deeper into the novel it becomes less and less funny and more of a distinct character trait.
I found the book to be superb, until its ending, when it gives a plot twist that sounds a bit like a cop-out. The “bad, crazy, rejodido” was the owner of the store. That is the twisted madman who kills one by one whom he kills and tries to kill…. But I missed that killer. the other characters are so well drawn! I include Gemma, and even the bitter mother. From the shopkeeper I don’t know much or rather nothing. Suddenly on a second reading I pay more attention to it. But in principle he seems to me a non-credible murderer because of the unexpectedness and flatness of his character, with no more nuances than a madness that is not highlighted before, nor does it give for half a previous suspicion, even a tiny one.
So, in a mimicry of the last season of Game of Thrones, all very well, but that I have to retrace my steps to see if the guy comes out before the end leaving traces, no. I don’t think so.
This is just an opinion. Overall I really liked the book, it entertained me and grabbed me. In the end, that’s what we want from a novel, isn’t it?
Web content writing doesn’t give me that much experience to critique a novelist. However, having read at least one novel a week for more than fifty years, some authority for my opinion will give it to me.
Thank you for reading me.