Look no further, my Angry Cat, I am here! I, Jay Cool! I am your slow-burn mystery, and there’s definitely something not quite right here. I mean, who else would put themselves forward for such a claim?

The only slight problem is that I think you might be looking for a book, rather than a real person. But, who is really real after all? And who really can ever be solved, like a good mystery can? As a work colleague once said to me; “I wish I could get inside your brain to see how it works!” And, as another said: “Jay Cool thinks a little differently to everyone else!” What an observation! Don’t we all think a little differently to everyone else? Well, whatever – it’s my brain, I’m inside it, and a mystery to others it will remain, because for now and forever, I’m staying put! Because, besides anything else, then I have lots more books to read – thousands of them – and I’ve just made my first 40p by blogging about them on behalf of my favourite bookshop, Waterstones! (Love the Ipswich branch!)

Why stop now?

Why give myself, or anyone else, an ending? This is just the beginning. Or, to  bring me neatly on to my next book review:

‘Her heart  beats and beats and beats – each time like a detonation in her own chest – and every moment from here on out is a new world.’ (p.246, in ‘Burn’ by Julianna Baggot)

As you will have gathered, then I’ve just finished devouring my latest savvy read, ‘Burn’, the last book in the ‘Pure’ Trilogy by Julianna Baggott. It’s targets itself at a teenage audience, and my teen years were too long ago for this absent-minded and forgetful middler to recall but, nonetheless, I loved the whole of Baggot’s trio. And, rather, aptly, the book ends with a trio, as three characters – Pressia, El Capitan and Helmud start out on their new life together.

And therein lies the problem. Following the final sentence about a ‘new world’, Baggott ends the world – the world I have been lost in for several weeks – with a devastating finale. Baggott (what was she playing at?) writes a very final:

‘The End’ (p.246)

What is Baggott playing at? It cannot possibly be the end. What happened to Wilma? Will the babies all die? Does Arvin come good? Do Pressia and El Capitan (and Helmud – defies any logical explanation!) become romantically involved with each other. And how will that work? Helmud’s hardly going to be given any choice in the matter!*

MildlyAngryCat, could the aptly titled ‘Burn’ be the ‘slow mystery’ you desire? There’s certainly something ‘not quite right’ about the ending. There must be more to come!