You probably know what the title refers to, but I certainly had no idea what “Plinko” meant when I started reading this mystery a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I was halfway through the book when I finally found out!
These images show that Plinko is a game that was made famous (even if I hadn’t heard of it by that name) on The Price is Right. It’s also famous (under a different name) at Boston’s Museum of Science. Most importantly, and the reason I know it, is that it’s well-known in mathematics as an offshoot of Pascal’s Triangle in the study of combinatorics.
“But, but…,” I hear you cry, “what does all that have to do with a courtroom drama — which I’m pretty sure is the genre of Martin Clark’s novel, The Plinko Bounce, the book being briefly reviewed here?”
Not much, I admit, although the narrative does include an explicit explanation that clarifies the title. But we don’t get to that explanation until the middle of the book, so the title remains a mystery until then. Anyhow, this is a reasonably well-done thriller with a firm focus on legal procedures much more than on investigation. If legal procedures fascinate you as they do me — think the second half of a Law and Order episode — then you will enjoy this book. You may or may not enjoy the ending, but I can’t comment on that without committing a spoiler.
Learning Strategies 