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A review by paulabrandon
Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham
2.0
Three couples meet while on holiday. On the last day, they learn of the disappearance of a girl with special needs, putting a strange twist on their travels. Back in England, they have a series of dinners to catch up. When another girl with special needs go missing, it seems one of them may be responsible.
This was all very "meh" for me! None of the characters are particularly likable, and there's not enough plot for the length of the book. We learn a lot about the day-to-day lives of Ed, Sue, Marina, Dave, Barry and Angie, but not much of it really pertains to what is going on. This is a very padded out story! There are also chapters from the perspective of a British trainee detective, and an experienced American detective, and the mother of the first missing girl. We even get the standard chapter giving us the life story of a couple of people who exist solely to discover a dead body, and are never heard from again! The latter particularly grates on me! Why does this happen so much in crime fiction?
This was just never as exciting or interesting as it should have been. Mark Billingham is known for his police procedural thrillers, and despite his afterword saying he was going out of his comfort zone for this one, it still feels a lot like a police procedural, because nothing of much interest was happening in the three couples' lives. The ultimate resolution was predictable and less than satisfactory.
This was all very "meh" for me! None of the characters are particularly likable, and there's not enough plot for the length of the book. We learn a lot about the day-to-day lives of Ed, Sue, Marina, Dave, Barry and Angie, but not much of it really pertains to what is going on. This is a very padded out story! There are also chapters from the perspective of a British trainee detective, and an experienced American detective, and the mother of the first missing girl. We even get the standard chapter giving us the life story of a couple of people who exist solely to discover a dead body, and are never heard from again! The latter particularly grates on me! Why does this happen so much in crime fiction?
This was just never as exciting or interesting as it should have been. Mark Billingham is known for his police procedural thrillers, and despite his afterword saying he was going out of his comfort zone for this one, it still feels a lot like a police procedural, because nothing of much interest was happening in the three couples' lives. The ultimate resolution was predictable and less than satisfactory.