Something Missing
Ratings5
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings5
Average rating3.3
A career criminal with OCD tendencies and a savant-like genius for bringing order to his crime scenes, Martin considers himself one of the best in the business. Of course, he only takes items that will go unnoticed by the homeowners. Even though he has never met these homewoners, he's spent hours in their houses, looking through their photo albums and reading their journals. He's developed a friendship of sorts with them, and accordingly he decides to intervene though it means breaking many of his twitchy, neurotic rules.
Reviews with the most likes.
Martin's a thief–a very peculiar kind of thief. He keeps going back to the same places time and again, mostly stealing staples–food, household supplies, etc.–enough to get by on, but never enough to get noticed. This book takes effort to get through–the quirky, even funny, premise will carry you through the first chapter or two, but then the excruciating detail that the Narrator gives about every little thing threatens to drag the story to a halt. I wanted to stop more than once, but there's something about Martin that made me want to stick with it.
I'm so glad I did, it was so worth it. After all the painstaking detail about how Martin gets into people's homes, learns their habits, decides how much to take, and then inventories it and so on...a new side of Martin starts to break through. One that cares about people. He starts taking risks–and everything, every dull, obsessive detail that you trudged through pays off.
The book becomes thrilling, endearing, heartwarming...by the end, I couldn't believe how much I liked Martin and was pulling for him.
One of the best surprises of the year. Lovely, fun, interesting take.
