SECRETS YOU CAN'T KEEP by Debra Webb

 2* A serious contender for the worst book I've read this year, up there with Things That Break Us by Michelle Heard.

Book 3 in this series shows that Vera and Bent (what a nickname - don't Americans know what it means?) have finally made it into bed, as 1) clearly they're both rather addled and 2) they manage to talk about sex in the middle of the absolutely not believable and not exciting case. This was so bad a book that at the end I returned it for a refund. There's no way I was wasting money on this.

If I didn't know, I'd have said this was a book by a first-time author. It was a 'diet' mystery and police procedural. The Valeri character was dodgy from the start and how she hadn't been arrested or at least questioned under caution, is beyond me, and apparently beyond Vera and Bent too. Were they giving her rope to hang herself with? Nope, they were risking her doing a bunk and getting away with her part in more than one death. Skilled investigator extraordinaire that Vera was meant to be, she never pushed beyond a point, even when Valeri's facial expressions and body language absolutely screamed she was implicated.

The duo had 4 leads, 4 very obviously dodgy leads, and the discovery of the main deceased's will should've meant that they got hauled in for questioning, but nope, that could wait. 6 innocents - including an unborn baby - got killed in this story, but the tale progressed like a slow moving trickle in a gutter. There was no urgency, no sense of danger or excitement, and even when Valeri was classed as a psychopath, they didn't move quickly on her. What happened to a Miranda? What happened to saying a chat was off the record if no Miranda was stated? Would her roomie's death be reopened? Would she get away with everything and plead insanity? What happened to the survivor? What happened to the 2nd, or was it, 3rd will? Who got what? 3 of the bad guys were so implausible that they were clearly just there as filler. The actual-actual baddie appeared a few pages before the end, I kid you not, making 5 actual bad guys, of which all 5 were caricatures. 

The Jackie death thing was yet more filler, although she wasn't an innocent in this tale. That whole arc was just totally inorganic, especially the till receipt thing. The mention of the reporter, Nolan's, mum was, yes, yet more filler. The fact that Valeri's motivations weren't actually discussed felt like an anticlimactic cop out, when I'd been expecting a 'If it wasn't for you pesky kids...', Scooby Doo style confession. The Geneva thing was, yes, you've guessed, yet more filler. The dead people were so much filler. There needed to be a psychologist observing Valeri in interview to make this seem at least a little plausible. At the end of the book, she still hadn't been arrested and she and Vera were playing 'you give me something, then I'll give you something, and then you give me something else, and I'll give you something else, and then...' I think you get it. Valeri needed her moment in the sun, confessing all, doing a big 'Muhahahahah!!!' because she was one utter sicko. Arrrgggghhh!!!!!!!!! Yes, this book really was this bad. 

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