Review: Good story, wrong genre
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 19, 2010
This is a well structured story that keeps the characters in trouble and maintains a solid pace, all required elements of a mystery novel. But I'm a fan of hard-boiled crime fiction, and this novel contains a little too much soft-boiled emotional and relationship stuff to convince me that it belongs in its current mystery/thriller genre (that's right, I'm a dinosaur). I think the book probably belongs more in one of the romance/mystery genres. If I'd found it there I would have given it 4 stars, but in this genre 3 stars only. The style might benefit from fewer present participle phrases at the start of sentences (Checking the front door lock, she headed for the kitchen...etc). These are a common feature of romance writing, for some reason. Sometimes they are unintentionally funny, a good reason to avoid using them as much as possible. They soon become repetitive and weaken the writing.