Alistair's Reviews > Death in the Sauna

I’ve said it before: the novel one reads after a stunning reading experience is bound to lose in comparison, and this applies to ‘Death in the sauna’. For an alleged mystery, there is no tension, no excitement as to “who did it”. The author uses his pre-eminent knowledge of the early years of the AIDS epidemic to fashion a murder mystery. But it just doesn’t work; and, once again I aim my trigger at the editor. This is the second novel of recent reading that appears to have had no editorial input. There are howlers of grammar that haven’t been picked up, and one character “sighs” three times within two pages. The eminent Altman needs to stick to what he knows best.
Sigh.