crofteereader 's review for:

The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould

3.0

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This one felt too... Quiet. I didn't feel the lurking sense of menace I would expect with two narrators whose peers are being murdered one by one. Like, yeah they talked about it, but there was never a fear that it would happen to them.

I also feel like having the Interludes kind of undermined the mystery of it all. Because the whole time we, the readers, know significantly more than our protagonists.

But also when a huge portion of your plot hinges on A asking B a question that B knows the answer to but B saying "I'll tell you later" is a little flimsy. Like, to know that the answer was there the whole time but just out of reach because... Why? Like, we never got a reason for why B elected not to tell A, just that B would tell A later. I guess the big reveal needed to happen, but... Flimsy.

I did enjoy the descriptions of the town and the area, the cabin, the motel, how the two protagonists view each other. I would definitely read another book by Gould, but this one wasn't quite a winner.

{Thank you Wednesday Books for the advanced copy and Macmillan Audio for the ALC; all thoughts are my own}