I wanted wit and I got it… this book was a novel that was a mystery, but also a hard look at what it means to be a woman living in the United Kingdom in these modern times. As told through several perspectives – one of which is a male private detective.
The author has taken some of the standard elements of a detective story and turned them on their heads. It was refreshing to read a new take on things and made for an interesting contrast with my gold-standard detective books, the Spenser series by Robert B. Parker.
One thing that got on my nerves while reading was the author’s habit of jumping ahead of the timeline and then filling it in later, sometimes overlapping perspectives of the same event with other characters. Once or twice was clever, but the trick got old after a while.
But there was plenty of wit and humor in this book – and I felt like I was getting a lot of contemporary British culture along with the mystery, which was fun. Apparently this is the first book in a series, and I’m not sure how it is going to progress the story. Maybe I like the more traditional approach to detective novels…
Next I am reading The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart.
