Review: Mystery and Conspiracy
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 10, 2014
I enjoyed this book very much. The plot was interesting and moved along at a good rate and the characters were all likeable.Hyder Ali is a junior reporter at a city newspaper when he hears of the death of his favourite college Professor, a man who was a mentor and friend to him. At his funeral he is approached by the Professor's daughter, Jessica who believes her father was murdered. Nolan, the police detective assigned to the case is also not convinced that the Professor committed suicide and eventually teams up with Jessica and Hyder to investigate further.I would have liked to have got to know the characters a little better and seen a little more character development. We are told that Nolan lost his wife in an accident and spent the last year sitting on the couch, depressed and drunk until ordered back to work by his old boss. There are hints of an interesting personality when he snipes at a few people at work but we never really find out much more about him and he remains a little cliched. It would be great to see his character develop more if he features in sequels to this. The journalist, Hyder Ali is fleshed out a little more when we meet his family and work colleagues and hear about his background however, Jessica, the Professor's daughter and the third main character in this novel is also rather bland and two dimensional.Despite these comments about the main characters, all up this was a very good crime-mystery story and I look forward to the next book in the series.(Q: Do adult American policeman and reporters really say 'My bad' to each other so often when they mean 'My mistake'? As a non-American I found that really annoying.)