The end result, however, is curiously lacking in focus.
Despite its macabre setting, the novel is curiously lacking in atmosphere.
The review of Napoleon A. Chagnon's "Noble Savages" by the anthropologist Elizabeth Povinelli (Feb. 17) was curiously lacking in information about the actual book.
Worse, the meticulous balance Mr. Lodge achieved between satire and sympathy in earlier books like "Therapy" and "Paradise News" is curiously lacking in this novel.
For all the emotion that was stirred up last week, the Jets were curiously lacking in fire in a game they wanted to win for Edwards and to salvage their season.
Bahadur chews khat, the local drug of choice, with several pirate warlords, and even gets to shoot an AK-47, but the book, despite a prologue full of derring-do promise, is curiously lacking in adventure.
For a man who talked about putting patients in charge and pushing through an "information revolution" to benefit them, Lansley's bill was curiously lacking in detailed proposals to ensure the new-era NHS was accountable.
Ben Brantley, New York Times The show is so determined to demonstrate how destiny never relaxes its stranglehold on its characters that any sparks of pleasure are snuffed out almost before they appear... Thérèse Raquin is curiously lacking in tension of any kind.
Meanwhile, Brahms's Fourth Symphony had passion but, apart from a truly Beethovenian scherzo with the timpani (Søndergård's original instrument) ensuring a hard rhythmic edge, the work as a whole was curiously lacking in the emotional and structural insight needed to make it a memorable interpretation.
Roasted loin of lamb with wilted spinach in cardamom jus sounded promising but turned out to be curiously lacking in personality, a lot like the rice-crusted red snapper, fitted out with a Thai-lite garnish of peanuts, cucumber and mint that can only be described as diffident.
