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A review by readinginmagnolia
Dark August: A Novel by Katie Tallo
2.0
I think I may have set my expectations too high for this one. The summary sounded really good. The characterizations were good for the most part and I enjoyed the configuration of the mystery, but I had quite a few issues. The beginning of the book felt very passive. The main character, a young woman who has inherited her estranged grandmother’s estate, for what it’s worth, navigates her memories of the past while dealing with the present. She sort of has some flashbacks that involve mostly characters that are already dead. It just felt like nothing was happening except to folks that died previously.
By the time I reached the halfway point, it had picked up a bit and I was starting to enjoy the story and the various characters as Gus followed her mother’s case notes and tried to figure out what had happened to her and how it related to the town of Elgin.
“That doesn’t make ___ dangerous. But he could be.”
I love mysteries and I love a strong, intelligent heroine. I don’t love a supposedly strong, intelligent heroine who runs off by herself investigating cases while doing things that are obviously dangerous and/or irresponsible with no backup. I lost count of the TSTL notations I made through the second half of this book. Quote from above as she knocks on the door of someone her mother noted in her case notes was a “grease monkey” meaning hitman/hatchet-man in context, and that she herself believes to have raped a teenage girl. There was a series of these little incidents that were not only questionable but kind of gave away the story through that section. So much so that I was not surprised by any of the “twists” as I neared the end of the book.
By the time I reached the halfway point, it had picked up a bit and I was starting to enjoy the story and the various characters as Gus followed her mother’s case notes and tried to figure out what had happened to her and how it related to the town of Elgin.
“That doesn’t make ___ dangerous. But he could be.”
I love mysteries and I love a strong, intelligent heroine. I don’t love a supposedly strong, intelligent heroine who runs off by herself investigating cases while doing things that are obviously dangerous and/or irresponsible with no backup. I lost count of the TSTL notations I made through the second half of this book. Quote from above as she knocks on the door of someone her mother noted in her case notes was a “grease monkey” meaning hitman/hatchet-man in context, and that she herself believes to have raped a teenage girl. There was a series of these little incidents that were not only questionable but kind of gave away the story through that section. So much so that I was not surprised by any of the “twists” as I neared the end of the book.