Review: Okay mystery thriller with some issues
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 19, 2014
The "mystery" in this book is strictly okay (meaning it's briefly engaging, but very easy to figure out).  There were some side issues that were just very distracting.  One of the main issues is that the book was set in Texas, but the author was clearly writing in British English.  While I've known many Texas who would understand what "whilst" means, I don't know any who would use the word, especially not police detectives.  Nor do Texans tend to say that coffee "went down a treat."  While these issues would have been an issue in any book set in the US, having them in a book set in an area with well known regional speech patterns made them even more distracting.Another issue was the author's tendency to dump huge blocks of information on us via dialogue or internal monologues.  A good example of this is at the beginning, when Tate gives us a rundown of how many women use internet porn.  Why does she even know this?  And why are we being told?  If this is her personal issue, why does it matter how many women use porn?The mystery in this book is on the okay so-so side, but there are points where Tate makes mistakes that just defy belief -- like when she, after knowing for days that her computer has been compromised, uses her computer to do research related to tracking down the hacker.  HE IS ON YOUR COMPUTER WITH YOU.  Even someone who is relatively unfamiliar with how computers work should have been able to puzzle that one out.  Or, as a Texas detective would say, "Whilst you are on your computer, you should reckon he can see what you are doing."