The not so good and the not so bad

 Death Overdue
A Haunted Library Mystery
by Allison Brooke


No, I don't think so. There's a fairly clever side story about a ghost in the library, one whom only the heroine and a small girl (niece?) can see. But that isn't able to hold its own against the slog of the mystery. Yeah, it's cleverly written, and yeah, the people are decently likeable. There was just enough amusement to keep me reading...but not enough to make me want more.

Sorry not to like it, though. I think the author did a good job. Most likely she'll get a following of satisfied readers and forge on to better things, and if that happens, I'll try again.

Laying Down the Paw

AARGH!  I hate what she does, and I hate it that I like her books despite the hate! She gets inside the heads of too many people. When reading a mystery, I only want to be inside one person's head. But she added a second one, a dog's, and that was okay and even very funny. I like the dog. . Yeah, the dog sometimes tells us things that the person doesn't know, spoiling the suspense, but you kind of guessed them anyway so it was okay.

For example, the officer (lead character; wants to make detective some day) is searching an area, finds nothing, quit and goes away. Her dog, though, notes that the person who gave her yummy treats was hiding in the area. Too bad.

But then the author insists on adding another person's head and I hate hate hate that. Yes, she does a good job. But it ruins any chance of the book being a mystery at all--there's no mystery. In the first book I read, she was in the head of the person committing the robberies and yes, she was portraying how a weak-willed but not altogether bad person can get caught up in crime and end up doing awfully bad things. It was an interesting character study, but for me it ruined the story.

And in this one she gets in the head of a kid who is connected with the crimes. I can't go into detail but I ended up liking the kid and wanting to know how he turned out. But still, once again, it ruined the story. And to add insult to injury she left an occasional detail deliberately vague, to build up the tension and make us wonder--did he or didn't he? No, no!  That is not my idea of storytelling.

I don't want any "unreliable narrators" in my murder mysteries, plain and simple. If I did, I'd read literature.