This is one of the most boring books I have ever read.

All the reviews made it sound like the kind of book I would normally go for: quaint Irish village, quirky characters, murder mystery. What's not to love? Well, as it turns out, not much.

Firstly, there really is not much sense that you're even in Ireland. There was a lot of description of the sea and the cliff where the main house is (some would say too much) and a lot of time is spent on how the Irish turn a phrase but it was not an immersive sort of book.

Secondly, the quirky characters are just poorly fleshed out ideas. There was glimmers of promise in the characters and their motives, but what you end up with is people with vague drives until the last two pages and then all of sudden it's like they're completely different people. The worst part is that not only does everyone just "change" at the end but a million loose threads are dropped and forgotten. I realize this is the first book in the series but no book should be this open ended.

Which brings my to my third point: the murder mystery. The whole plot is kicked off when a body is found and the majority of the story is the main character trying to figure out "who done it" from a cast of three other characters. It got to the point that the only reason I was reading (okay, okay I was skimming) this book was to find out who did it and lo and behold this wonderful story worked it's magic again and

YOU NEVER FIND OUT WHO DID IT

And the cherry on top: the main character is a very annoying, emotionally underdeveloped, middle aged man.

This book is an exorbitant waste of time and I do not recommend it.