Europe in Winter

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This form is one of the books' many strengths, but in Winter it is also its weak spot. Remarkably, Kincaid wrote that "there is no point where [Hutchinson] allows the story to flag", contrasting this with the previous two books. I don't agree, as for me it was exactly the opposite. I thought the previous books nowhere became tiresome, and it's only in Winter that the story did flag a bit: the final fourth failed to really grab me. That's because Hutchinson expands his world in that final part of the novel yet again, and to a certain extent it felt like he stretched it too much.

So I rather agree with Jeroen, who wrote that the ending "seems to come out of the blue. We never really follow Rudi's explorations from up close, so there is no sense that the story is going places, and when Hutchinson seemed to tire of his short stories he pasted the resolution at the end to round off the novel." While the books seem intricately crafted, at the same time I get the impression Hutchinson made it up as he went along -- nothing wrong with that, to be clear, it's an interesting paradox that attests to Hutchinson's writing prowess & skill.

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Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It