Guest Review: Forgiving Maximo Rothman by AJ Sidranksy

 

Forgiving Maximo Rothman
written by AJ Sidranksy
published by Berwick Court Publishing, 2013

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble (Nook) (print), Amazon, iBooks, Book Depository, Goodreads

Did I enjoy this book: No. The author had too many story lines going to allow for good depth of character, and the excessive use of time shifts detracted from the novel for me. Moreover, while the first half of the book established a foundation for a strong story arc, the second half was utterly predictable.

Would I recommend it: No. While the subject matter had great promise of emotional substance, the author fails to make the connection between the characters and the reader.

~ Jeff ~

(husband of EFC reviewer, Julie)

About the book – from Goodreads: On a chilly autumn night in New York, the lives of two men born decades and continents apart collide when Max Redmond is found bludgeoned in his Washington Heights apartment. While investigating the crime, Detective Tolya Kurchenko comes across the dead man’s diaries, written by Redmond over four decades. He hopes the diaries will lead him to the killer. In fact, they help him sort out the complexities of his own identity.

Spanning 65 years and three continents — from Hitler’s Europe to the decaying Soviet Empire of the 1970s, and revealing the little-known history of Sosúa, a Jewish settlement in the jungles of the Dominican Republic — A. J. Sidransky’s debut novel leads us into worlds long gone, and the lives of people still touched by those memories.