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marryd's review against another edition
4.0
This is the first of Jennifer Rowe's new Holly Love cozy mystery series. Her previous series have been in a more serious vein than this but I found this very enjoyable. It's set in the Blue Mountains where Ms Rowe herself lives and has an engaging and eccentric cast of characters perfect for creative set that historically has lived there. The area is beautifully evoked for those who know it.
Holly has dumped her boring fiancee and life in Perth to move to Sydney. She falls for Andrew McNish (love that name) only to find herself abandoned, homeless, unemployed and broke in the Blue Mountains. Determined to find the thieving Andrew and get her life savings back she hires PI O'Brien only to have him drop dead. Somehow she gets his home, parrot, neighbours and his voice in her head.
She's not the only one looking for Andrew the ultimate con artist and we go with her on a very clever plot journey with wonderful characters that manages to combine wit to the point of hilarity with excellent tension. I loved it.
Holly has dumped her boring fiancee and life in Perth to move to Sydney. She falls for Andrew McNish (love that name) only to find herself abandoned, homeless, unemployed and broke in the Blue Mountains. Determined to find the thieving Andrew and get her life savings back she hires PI O'Brien only to have him drop dead. Somehow she gets his home, parrot, neighbours and his voice in her head.
She's not the only one looking for Andrew the ultimate con artist and we go with her on a very clever plot journey with wonderful characters that manages to combine wit to the point of hilarity with excellent tension. I loved it.
kchisholm's review against another edition
4.0
I do like a bit of a romp novel, and LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN is nothing if not a bit of a romp. Which surprised me a bit - because the blurb sounded just a little dauntingly like it might be too chick-lit for me. But Jennifer Rowe's return to mystery writing has hugely exciting, so exciting I picked up this book as soon as it arrived.
Set in the Blue Mountains (Rowe's home territory it seems), LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN is, you'd have to hope, the first outing of accidental Private Detective Holly Love. I say accidental as she starts out as an office worker who chucked her long-term (boring, cardigan wearing, pea squashing) boyfriend and almost instantly agrees to marry Financial Advisor and stunner Andrew McNish. Which plan went rapidly to pieces on the night that she gave up everything in Sydney, and drove to the Mountains to prepare for the wedding. Only to find Andrew, and all her money gone.
Not a terribly surprising story up until here I hear you mutter... we've been here before. What's really good about LOVE HONOUR etc is that it does cover some well worn territory - but it does it with it's own sense of style and humour. Holly is a great character - her man disappearing (along with everything in his house being repossessed around her) does not mean she packs up and runs home to mother - she hires a Private Detective. The Private Detective dropping dead does slow her down a bit - but moving into his flat, taking up his mobile phone and getting on with his job and looking after his parrot - actually works. Even the idea of a lunatic household / heirs of an undertaking millionaire - weirdly kind of work.
Okay so there's not a lot that's new here - and Holly's one of those accidental Private Detectives that is more catalyst than resolver, but the sense of humour is wonderful, the pace is tremendous, the cast of supporting characters really vivid and the whole thing just well ... works. Definitely a book more for fans of the lighter side of mystery fiction, and one in which readers will have to accept that there are things in Holly's life that may just need a future instalment. Rowe has once again proven herself to be a particularly dab hand at developing strong female characters, and building a plot and story around them that's engaging, hugely entertaining and quite clever.
Set in the Blue Mountains (Rowe's home territory it seems), LOVE HONOUR AND O'BRIEN is, you'd have to hope, the first outing of accidental Private Detective Holly Love. I say accidental as she starts out as an office worker who chucked her long-term (boring, cardigan wearing, pea squashing) boyfriend and almost instantly agrees to marry Financial Advisor and stunner Andrew McNish. Which plan went rapidly to pieces on the night that she gave up everything in Sydney, and drove to the Mountains to prepare for the wedding. Only to find Andrew, and all her money gone.
Not a terribly surprising story up until here I hear you mutter... we've been here before. What's really good about LOVE HONOUR etc is that it does cover some well worn territory - but it does it with it's own sense of style and humour. Holly is a great character - her man disappearing (along with everything in his house being repossessed around her) does not mean she packs up and runs home to mother - she hires a Private Detective. The Private Detective dropping dead does slow her down a bit - but moving into his flat, taking up his mobile phone and getting on with his job and looking after his parrot - actually works. Even the idea of a lunatic household / heirs of an undertaking millionaire - weirdly kind of work.
Okay so there's not a lot that's new here - and Holly's one of those accidental Private Detectives that is more catalyst than resolver, but the sense of humour is wonderful, the pace is tremendous, the cast of supporting characters really vivid and the whole thing just well ... works. Definitely a book more for fans of the lighter side of mystery fiction, and one in which readers will have to accept that there are things in Holly's life that may just need a future instalment. Rowe has once again proven herself to be a particularly dab hand at developing strong female characters, and building a plot and story around them that's engaging, hugely entertaining and quite clever.
gigishank's review against another edition
3.0
Almost, fairly good plot and characters. Annoying that the main character was so stupid, lots of jumping to conclusions and acting on those conclusions, I was getting mixed up as to what was true and what was her faulty reasoning.
lizhwriter's review against another edition
4.0
Nice and quirky. Lovely to have a detective story set in the blue mountains, in NSW. Hope this is the first of a series.
mandi_m's review against another edition
3.0
I only picked this book up because the author writes teen fiction under a pseudonym and I have really enjoyed them. It was a good decision as, on face value, I wouldn't normally have chosen this and it really was a fun read. A cross between detective fiction and chick lit is probably the best description. Fun, light and a mystery to be solved.