A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Simply finishing this book was an accomplishment. Not that I hated it or thought it especially boring, but it never begged to be finished. I literally watched the pilot episode of Family Matters rather than cracking this book open one evening - and I’m more of a Step by Step girl myself if we’re discussing early 90s TGIF programming. Oh, we’re not?

Anyway, this novel had a fantastically intriguing premise, because honestly, who isn’t at least a tad turned on (metaphorically speaking of course..) by the idea of being able to secretly creep on friends, neighbors, the occasional interesting stranger? Hell, it’s Facebook in 4D! Alert every busy body and bored housewife! Mr. Heming was a delightfully disturbing dude, but his novel unfortunately doesn’t deliver any real thrills or twists, or even a satisfying climax.

For a character who’s life and surroundings were dissected in so much (too much) detail, the lack of personal backstory was disappointing. I wanted to know WHY Heming was such a weirdo. What turned him into the peeping Tom, borderline psychopath he is today? I suppose we are supposed to assume he was simply born that way...And sure, I’ll allow it, but cmon, you (I’m taking to you, author of this book) gotta give me something. So many excerpts of this book flirted with opening some sort of freaky Pandora’s box... but then politely declined.

On the last page, we are left with the same oddly unapologetic voyeur we had on page one, only with a few more murders under his belt. Nothing lost, (except a few lives) nothing gained. In my opinion, the storyline got lost and convoluted halfway through and never truly found its footing again. It ends up reading more like a random journal entry of a sociopath than anything else. Which believe me, sounds a lot better than it actually was.



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