I can't believe this book was first published in 1990. I would have guessed at least 20 years earlier. The characters feel very early-to-mid 20th century and the cultural touchstones all went over my head because of how dated they were. At one point the protagonist compares another character to James Dean (died 1955) - or one of the children of "Ozzie and Harriet". I looked that one up and it's a sitcom from the early 60s.

It's also weird that the protagonist ends up not being the one who solves the mystery. And I thought there were a few too many characters who weren't really fleshed out properly so when the killer was revealed I wasn't really sure who they were. Their motives and such are quite clear so it does all make sense but I didn't get the feeling that it would have been possible to figure out ahead of the reveal, just because you don't get enough opportunity to get to know everyone.

There were a couple of other quirks that I didn't really care for as well: the protagonist is a real snob about food and I found that irritating, and her husband has this habit of using bits of French - but in ways that never felt natural. Like, he refers to their baby as "my petit chou" rather than "mon petit chou" and that's pretty repesentative of the types of things he says. It rang false for how people throw bits of other languages into their speech.

But overall I didn't mind the book. I wouldn't recommend it, but I wouldn't recommend against it either. It's fine. Read it if you want.