Review: fresh and entertaining mystery
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 17, 2014
Let me preface this review with a disclaimer. I am a huge fan of Agatha Christie and hold most mystery authors to this standard. If you are unfamiliar with or dislike this author, this review may not be very helpful to you.I was most pleasantly surprised by this book and author. I read free ebooks on my kindle frequently and was expecting another regurgitation of a tired old plot that followed the same tired old dialogue and contrived situations to make the "mystery" work. That is NOT what I got. Instead, I found a delightful cast of characters and a well thought out plot driven by realistic discoveries. I rated the work at 4 stars because I think this author has some major improvements to make. The dialogue was simplistic. At times, I felt I might be reading a work for young adults except the themes were too advanced and adult. Each of the characters was delightfully human but somewhat shallow. I can see where the author was going and what he was attempting to do. I hope the books following this one in the series flesh them out a bit.Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was insightful, engaging, and basically a great read. I had fun with it. The mystery element of it is less a who dunnit and more a look at how the detectives discover the truth. Mr. Hill shows great talent and I will be reading more of his books. He is less of an Agatha Christie author and more of a Hardy Boys style author. He shows great command of his plot and an awesome imagination. With time and seasoning, perhaps I will elevate his status closer to Dame Christie but for now, he is a lot of fun and a great way to spend an hour or two.