Friday, October 2, 2020

Pretty near ready to give up on cozies


Threshold of Deceit (The Blackwell and Watson Time-Travel Mysteries, #2)

I wrote this at the time: I'm enjoying this but it's driving me crazy!  What is the deal with mystery novelists jumping in and out of everybody's head? 

You knew who the murderer was from page one, because you watched her doing it.  All that's left are the steps of detection, which is boring boring boring because you already know how it's going to turn out! And later, when the author introduced a wrinkle into the case, she telegraphed the reveal so clearly that reading the "big revelation" was downright anticlimactic.

What in the world happened to convince an author that someone wanted to read a police procedural with no suspense whatsoever? The subplot, which involves the modern-day female tracking down a lost twin brother, is interesting but again, resolves itself with no suspense at all.

The characters are cool and the situation fascinating, but I don't think I can stomach another one unless she learns to keep her omniscient author's prying eyes out of peoples' heads.


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