But Shields's novel leans less toward riff than rehash.
Still, my quibble is not really with McDermid's claim that the crime novel leans leftward.
It should therefore do solid business, pulling in couples where the novel leaned heavily on a female readership.
Although the novel leans heavily on staples of midlife crisis (an extramarital affair, reconnection with old friends), Doyle's dialogue and his depictions evoke the warmth and vigor of a complicated but joyful family life.
In those scenes, "Wuthering Heights," the novel, can lean more heavily on the potentially unreal — on the unconscious, the hidden, the imagined, and the fantasized.
For a novel that leans so heavily on its setting, "Tangerine" rarely succeeds at evoking more of Tangier than its heat, its humidity (or dust), its "confined and chaotic streets," and its sweet mint tea.
Even the recent surge of long novels leans toward the readable, aside from the daunting thickness of the books (see: Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch).
The first pages of "Great Expectations" are a strong candidate for the best opening of any novel, and Lean, far from being bowed down by the responsibility, promptly replied with one of the best openings in the history of film.
We report on the microstructure, texture and deformation mechanisms of a novel ductile lean duplex stainless steel (Fe 19.9Cr 0.42Ni 0.16N 4.79Mn 0.11C 0.46Cu 0.35Si, wt.%).
It's a nice scene, elegantly composed, and one that gestures perhaps too cutely at the novel's premise: to lean on history, but to shape it with a romantic hand.
