A review by liseyp
Dark Road Home: A tense and gripping Irish crime thriller by Sheila Bugler

mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Thank you to the author, publisher Canelo Crime, and online book club The Pigeonhole for the chance to read this. This is an honest and voluntary review. 

 

More than two decades after leaving home Leah Ryan returns to her small Irish hometown at the same time to discover that her high school boyfriend has been murdered and it may all tie back to the night her mother was severely injured in a hit and run incident. 

 

Ambitious story, but story-telling style pulled me out of the plotting too often. 

 

The core story of the woman returning to a small town who know many of the parts of her she tried to run away from then discovering the secrets her friends and family were hiding from her, is a good one. 

 

The main character of Leah is likeable, and there are some decent supporting characters. The story could have been greatly improved with more focus on a couple of them though. The lead detective investigating the murder feels more a source of exposition than of driving the story forward. And the darker characters which would have been more interesting to explore remain quite surface level too. 

 

Plus, and this is absolutely a matter of personal taste, I’m not a fan of story styles where there are info dumps to catch readers up who aren’t paying attention - and it irked me particularly in this one because I thought the author had done a really good job of seeding the back story until one character has to spell it all out for those who weren’t paying attention. One of the advantages of reading on a format where you can see other readers’ reactions and views as they go through the book, means I know many readers appreciated the recap, but it really pulled me out of the story and contributed to that character grating every time they appeared. 

 

Also, and again I’m sure this is also personal preference, but, ‘twists’ that are delivered by people in peril, fade to black, next chapter opens after a time jump when all imminent peril has been removed, just feel like a ‘cheat’ move. And it happens twice. 

 

There is a core of a good story here, and lots of potential in the delivery, and I think that just makes me more disappointed, because it just falls short for me.