RoroblusMumReadsReviews/Rants

3* Not this author's best book - it lacks credibility - but something to read. I had to suspend disbelief quite a bit with this one - there were scenarios happening that made for a messy intro and tbh, some of it felt a bit too obviously red-herring like, especially with one character's first name never being mentioned.  They grated because of their strings-attached stance but also didn't seem to be on-page enough to really matter. And the bits about Laura's relationship with her mother went nowhere, too. It just felt a bit too convoluted. Laura seemed too with it to be taken in as she was by a certain character. I mean, she saw through her colleague's machinations within 2 suspicious bookings... I didn't get her trying to force her sister into a confession, it felt like. To what end? Was she a suspect? Why? She'd barely been part of the book so far. This book felt like it needed weeding out. The various neighbours' stories just muddied the waters and fe...

5* Utterly engrossing, and without the faux-gloss of Big City tales. Well narrated; with plausible characters, main and peripheral; a sad underlying reveal; and justice done for one, leaving me a little sad for the person in prison at the end.  I got an email from the publisher offering me this book, and having read one by this author before, I simply said yes and dove in blurb unread. Which was the best possible way to have read it.  It's done in the unidentified voice of the person who's lured all the others to the café to get to a trith in their shared past and deliver their long-held-back justice. It's impossible to tell if they're male or female, as all the persons that've been identified as present could be the one holding the gun. Which ends up going off, fatally, at the start of the tale. And going off once more at the end.  Their nearest and dearest are brought in to try and shed light on a possible connection between them. The cops are a bit slow to respon...

3.5* Parts were good, but the killer was not at all believable. The case should've been solved a lot earlier with simple investigating. This is a mixed book, with Pope having issues with relating to the people in her life (job plus past trauma), with what seemed initially to be a serial killer (pretty decently done in the first instance), with red herrings that segued pretty well, but then came the killer. Whose story should've been debunked quickly and efficiently with the aid of social media, which probably around 85% of the world, at least, pour chapter and verse of their lives onto. How, why, didn't the police immediately go there? They belatedly sussed all wasn't well but by them the killer had morphed into a Scooby Doo-baddie caricature, with loud proclamations and telegraphing their next steps, that Pope didn't cotton onto. The ending didn't make me want to read more, as it wasn't punchy enough. Stuff got hinted at, as did Pope's emotional thawing...

4* Good storyline, but I'm not feeling/seeing/believing the Nicole-Max romance.  This author's books are a must-buy. Even without the romance that I like in my novels, this was a very readable, believable book in what's still effectively the Mercy Kilpatrick universe.  The tale starts off slow but accelerates quickly with the discovery of bodies, connection to militias and with various law enforcement agencies coming together. There's Max - Noelle's love interest - paired up with Mercy, then there's Truman's lot, plus Noelle and Evan. I don't profess to understand much about the US's law enforcement agencies' jurisdictions but it wasn't that clear that all were needed, although it's always nice getting a Mercy fix. Her prepper past brought insight to the bad guys, although it also brought back the trauma of her time undercover with preppers/militia.  Noelle didn't have an awful lot to do in the tale, although it's nice that she...

3* Had decent bones but the danger, whether elemental or human, never felt real. There's a few things going on in this tale, none of which gets explored in enough detail. I mean, we get told that Abby and Jax are exes who divorced after their 4yo died, and are taking a make-or-break break, but there's nothing about their married life, there's nothing about their daughter and there's pretty much nothing about why they're together now. Then you have Rachel and her partner who thinks they're in a serious relationship but Rachel's the rolling-stone type and has chickened out of the conversation. Her father's apparently got a problem that she's a lesbian, yet that doesn't feature at all when he makes an impromptu visit. There's a bad guy plotting his revenge but he doesn't feel dangerous. Hmm, too many elements and nothing executed to the best of its ability. The tale's blurb promised a lot but the book failed to deliver an exciting or dee...

3.5* Atmospheric, engrossing but also quite irritating in how things are obfuscated, particularly where the father is concerned. This is my first read by this author, which I grabbed because of the excellent blurb. I'm not sure the female lead's cop instincts are very good, as she never really felt like she was on enough of an alert, despite the discovery of her dead brother, sightings of someone in the trees, and the mystery of her potential niece or sister. She allowed herself to get into a situation she needed rescuing from - just like in the opening scene where she's caught mountaineering/climbing - and puts others at risk.  The mystery of who/what her father was, began to get irritating with only flashbacks in her POV. I think the author deliberately obfuscated things to bring about the ending - another irritation - and it got tiresome after a while. I didn't like the kids' brainwashing, although all became understandable right at the very end. And talking of s...

 4* Elea is a maverick by British policing standards, but boy, does she get the job done efficiently. For me, what helped this book's storyline are the Norwegian names, which I didn't google and which gave me a whodathunk moment when the ending came. That aspect of concealment/obfuscation was done pretty well, and the final reveal right at the very end, once the baddie/s were gone, felt believable.  The tale goes back and forth into Elea's life and job, and between Lincoln and Porvoo, without losing me or my interest. The darker aspects were more unpleasant than horrifying - a lot of stuff happened off-page - and sadly, Porvoo kind of permitted them to happen, with its location, population and climate.  Elea was literally a woman and a cop on a mission. It wasn't clear where one ended and the other started in the 2025 part of the story, but it was very obvious which took precedence in the past. I liked this aspect of her 'policing', putting the pressure on when ...