Happy Reading

Toni's bookshelf: read

The Godfather of Kathmandu (Sonchai Jitpleecheep, #4)
Ape House
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Operation Napoleon
Walking Dead
The Sentimentalists
The Heretic Queen
The Midnight House
Cross Fire
Peony in Love
Absurdistan
Nefertiti
Finding Nouf: A Novel
City of Veils: A Novel
First Daughter
A Place of Hiding
Amagansett
Peter Pan


Toni Osborne's favorite books »
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Friday, February 10, 2017

"Undertow", by R.M. Greenaway

Book #2, in the BC Blues Crime series

One year has passed since the first story ended. In this installment we have Constables Leith and Dion back together working in North Vancouver. It doesn’t take time before they get deeply involved in a pair of hugely intricate murder cases: one tragic cold case and the other the double murder of Cheryl Liu and her baby daughter. Everything soon morphs in one incredible tangle where nothing is sure and no one is really telling the truth. We need to decipher all this as we go along and follow Leith and Dion tackling the 2 investigations.

As in her previous novel “Cold Girl”, Mr. Greenaway penned another multilayered mystery that dilly-dallies a lot and is way longer than necessary. I would say it is one of those books you love or hate for that reason. The author pays great attention to small details slowing every down to a crawl. Leaving aside action which is so scattered you rarely see some I needed to change tack, put my mind to it in order to keep up with this puzzle. As it slowly revealed itself piece by piece the mystery started to grow on me and I didn’t mind pushing on.

This novel is definitely a character driven mystery with many players to keep track of some of which may show up in one or the other investigation or not at all….that was also a challenge. The style is a little different and is quite unique and may have all the attributes to make it fascinating but as in the first book I found it to be a hard book to get into. The style may not have totally appealed to my taste but this does not mean “Undertow” is not a well-written and captivating mystery, it is in many ways. It simply wasn’t meant for me.

Thank you Dundurn and NetGalleys for this ARC

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