Reviews

The Key to Deceit by Ashley Weaver

Only show reviews with written explanations

rusty_spurs's review

The author is doing more telling than showing and I don’t like how the characters are built.

Plus, there are frequent parts of the story so far that don’t make sense. I know it’s fiction, but a detective would not be discussing a dead person’s clothes with someone who is hired to pick a lock.

If I continue reading this would have been 2 stars.

bookwoman1967's review

Go to review page

3.0

I was excited to win a copy of this in a GoodReads giveaway and enjoyed reading it. I stick pretty closely to the GoodReads definition for stars (three stars means I liked it), am pretty opinionated, and read a lot of books - so just because my review is not as high as others on this page doesn't mean this is not a good book. It means I found it an entertaining historical mystery and will continue reading the series if possible.

The book did start a little slowly for me, but after the action picked up it drew me in and kept the pages turning. I have always hated love triangles in mysteries, but this is the first one I've seen that I actually find both male leads appealing. Kudos to Ashley Weaver for that. The main characters and their supporting cast are appealing and interesting, and Ellie's family backstory that weaves throughout the series is an ongoing mystery worth following.

Recommended.

darwinista's review

Go to review page

5.0

The second installment of the Electra McDonnell series is as delightful as the first, setting up a satisfying heist adventure! With spies! Ellie, our young 1940s heroine, is now using her safe-cracking skills to help England defeat the Nazi. This book sets up a heist adventure which is quite satisfying. The heroine and the other female characters are not relegated to the role of damsels in distress. There is danger, subterfuge, and skullduggery, and Ellie relishes it. London during the early years of WWII is recreated persuasively, in a way that evokes the moment without veering into a history lesson. I also enjoyed the romantic element. While this isn't a romance novel, Ellie has two potential love interests, and the tension with the tightly-wound Major Ramsey continues to sizzle (albeit on the back burner). If you liked Weaver's earlier series with Amory Ames, this one is better--it has more momentum, more liveliness, an interesting cast of characters, with the heroine's professional skills and atypical values (she's not fully committed to being a good citizen) as the icing on the cake.

Best things:
- Fast-moving, compelling plot
- Competent heroine
- The plot is NOT driven by the main characters doing ridiculously out-of-character things
- Period-appropriate writing (so no wincing over glaring anachronisms, at least not that I noticed)
- Nice romantic tension

Things I didn't love
- Typecasting of "Irishness" with the heroine and her family.
- The second love interest (he's somehow a bit blah, which is disappointing in an injured war veteran/forger)