Handling the Pace

I got fed up with The Widow Killer - the first half was OK but it became apparent during the second half that the author just wasn't handling the pace well. There was so much going on - last days of German occupation of Prague, Russians approaching, Nazis retreating, massacres, sadistic murderer on the loose pursued by police - and it was actually boring! Because he just seemed to plod on and on - this happens, that happens, but I lost interest and though I struggled on to the end I had stopped caring all that much.
In sharp contrast to the latest 'local' book which I'm now reading - Sacrifice by S. J. Bolton. Only local in that Shetland is a backdrop, and she wrote it before she'd even visited the island, but this is a writer who handles pace splendidly. It's a great old yarn that I'm devouring avidly, and it's quite witty in parts too. Off to the Glasgow book festival this weekend by the way. In my bag for reading on the train will be Sacrifice (unless I finish it tonight) and my lastest attempt at Central European fiction, one of Stanslaw Lem's books.