I
had some difficulty enjoying this book. It is a murder mystery but
the murder did not happen until past the middle of the book. The
first real action in the novel did not happen until about a third of
the way in. There is lots of prose, mostly thoughts of the
characters. Action scenes and dialogue seem to take a back seat.
I
found McMillan's writing style hard to follow. A new chapter would be
in a new setting but that would not be revealed until the second or
third paragraph. There were some sentences and paragraphs I had to
reread in order to entirely understand them. I felt the narrative did
not flow smoothly.
I
found the setting of Boston nightclubs in 1937 was just not fun. I
did not like all the alcohol and sleazy characters. The main
characters, Reggie and Hammish, did not grab me and I had difficulty
really caring for them. And I do wish there would have been at least
a hint of Christianity included.
All
that being said, McMillan did a good job of the historical setting,
describing the buildings, the music, movies, musicians, etc.
My
rating: 3/5 stars.
Rachel
McMillan is the author of the Herringford and Watts series. She lives
in Toronto where she works in educational publishing.
Thomas
Nelson, 352 pages.
I
received a complimentary digital copy of this book from the
publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment