Murder mystery - kept me reading.

Laaaame. Glad this was a short Kindle freebie because it was kind of a piece of crap. Most authors of crime thrillers seem to have some background in or knowledge of criminal justice/law enforcement, but this feels like it was written by a high schooler. Super formulaic like they just followed an outline of “how to write crime fiction”. MC is supposed to be a revered and legendary FBI agent but I definitely could have wrapped this case before she did. Writing is repetitive and amateur. Generic and 1000% predictable. 2.5 stars.

Sooooo...I almost went down to 2 stars. The story is mostly 3. It was a bit predictable and I guessed "whodunnit," but that was okay. What really annoyed me was the reader. Her voice was ALL wrong for this genre.

Overall enjoyable. I liked that there were so many female characters, and although you could tell it was written by a man in how he described the women's internal thoughts, particularly on their own bodies and aging, it didn't cross the line into gratuitous or off-putting. I enjoyed Kate's characterization, but the mystery in the end had no clues for the audience to try to piece together. As a thriller, it seemed a bit rushed in the final act and descriptions of grief that felt really authentic in previous scenes were in my opinion too suddenly and jarringly revealed to be deceptions.

Minor Spoiler:
Why would the final victim think "you" when confronted by the killer given who the perpetrator turned out to be? Why would he be almost as excited to catch her in the shower as to kill her considering her thoughts just before the murder?
/Spoiler

My only other complaint was that the author took time to give Kate the internal narration that she had a lifelong nickname for her daughter and then never once used it. In that same paragraph as revealing it - the one time it was used - 'Melissa' is written 5 or 6 times!

Tl;dr - Pacing issues aside, I had a few sections of the reveal that I had trouble reconciling in hindsight. However, it was a good, quick read that was fairly authentic with it's female characters and didn't rely heavily on tropes, instead giving the POV character quite a bit of nuance. 3.5/5

Ok mystery in serious need of an editor. BTW - regular mystery readers will spot the red herring a mile away and then the killer is no surprise.

This writing is plagued by repeated words ....and once you hear them you cannot unhear them.

3.5 stars. It was a good, interesting story

Il problema principale del libro è che la protagonista non è per niente simpatica. Il giallo scorre. Forse il finale un po' tirato via e prevedibile, almeno per chi ha letto abbastanza gialli. Con qualche incongruenza.