An interesting start
4 stars
To be clear, this is the first in a series of books spanning double digits (and decades of writing), so writing a review for it almost feels somehow unfair. I have no idea if it reflects on the rest of the series and would suspect it likely doesn't, given the time available to work on things.
I'll also note upfront that mysteries are not my usual genre. But I wanted to try something different. So my ability to compare this to other mystery authors or even gauge whether it's a "good" mystery is probably wanting. I'm a sci-fi and fantasy guy at heart.
All of the disclaimers out of the way, the main character is a bit of a weepy mess and probably not the kind of person I'd get along with. Given I'm very much a character-driven stories kind of guy, that had me questioning things at first. That …
To be clear, this is the first in a series of books spanning double digits (and decades of writing), so writing a review for it almost feels somehow unfair. I have no idea if it reflects on the rest of the series and would suspect it likely doesn't, given the time available to work on things.
I'll also note upfront that mysteries are not my usual genre. But I wanted to try something different. So my ability to compare this to other mystery authors or even gauge whether it's a "good" mystery is probably wanting. I'm a sci-fi and fantasy guy at heart.
All of the disclaimers out of the way, the main character is a bit of a weepy mess and probably not the kind of person I'd get along with. Given I'm very much a character-driven stories kind of guy, that had me questioning things at first. That said, the story itself was interesting, there was enough nuance to the various people and situations in play to leave me guessing before the big reveal, and the writing /editing itself is solid.
It turned out that I was right about the culprit(s) based on my first suspicion, but I was never completely sure. That's good enough for me. I'll probably read a few more of these and see if it sticks. For me, that will mostly depend on if there is any development of the main character.