Random in Death by JD Robb

[lightreads]

Random in Death

3/5. In Death does an incel. It’s a good procedural as this series goes, and she had the sense to keep the incel POV out until late in the game because blech, who wants to spend a lot of time in there. More importantly, though, I didn’t buy the portrayal of this guy. You could sell me a loner, sure, but zero contact with a broader – I don’t want to call it a “community” so let’s assign incels the collective noun creep -- creep? That is missing the point. This book would have you that this kid invented the mindset from scratch with no input, all while he recites thesis statements from your basic incel internet rantings. It makes the mystery less interesting to solve because you can’t get at him through his contacts, but it also makes the whole thing way less sociopolitically relevant, which is what she’s grasping after with all these Nora-Roberts-thinks-about-the-topic-of-the-day books in the first place.

Content notes: Uh, incel. Attempted rape. Murder of teenagers.

Comments

[lokifan]

Absolutely missing the point. That'd drive me nuts tbh, because the 'lone wolf'/'lone madman' framing of this kind of stuff lets all the far-right shit that feeds into the eventual violence off the hook and makes it harder to fight.

[lightreads]

Yup exactly