A review by ksparks
Blindspot by Jane Kamensky, Jill Lepore

3.0

For the first half of this book I was completely into it--the plot was interesting, there was erotic tension, it was witty, it is historical and well-researched. But at some point in the novel it started to go bad. The eroticism went overboard and became just silly and cloying. The history...well, I'm sure the facts are correct but somehow the atmosphere isn't really believable and the characters seem anachronistic. The mystery--well there's an omniscient "detective" who is always 20 steps ahead of the other characters (yawn) and there is that kind of Agatha- Christie-style gather-all-the-suspects-together denoument (double yawn) that just didn't fit in very well with either the romance or the history. And then the characters go from witty to maudlin as soon as they get together. Ultimately I think there was too much of a mish-mash of styles. But, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people will really enjoy this book and it was a very ambitious attempt, that I appreciate.