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A review by bookish_kristina
Murder On Boston Common by ANDREA KRESS
3.0
An intriguing idea and setting but a rushed and lacklustre mystery, 2.5 stars.
I don’t know what to make of this book. The mystery wasn’t even really solved and ended on a cliff hanger *maybe* to be continued in the next book. I can’t tell you how much I dislike that and I’m not yet sold on this series or this author.
Let me elaborate: the mystery in this book was the third storyline at most, much overshadowed by the heroine’s search for her purpose and her love triangle with Dr. Browne and Detective Halloran.
The first part of this book had the feel of a continuing storyline, referring to events like the Valentine’s Ball and speaking of and to characters but not mentioning how they are known. I had to do some digging into the author’s catalogue to find out that this series is a crossover from her Berkshire Cozy Mysteries series and these characters were introduced in a previous book there.
How annoying! This put me off the book right away and things only improved slightly from there.
This was an extremely slow moving mystery with way too much time spent on Amanda’s volunteer work and interior design project. The murder didn’t happen until a third of the way into the book and then nothing was developed in it until near the end. This resulted in a rushed reveal by the criminal, which is the laziest way to write mystery imo.
For a 200 page murder mystery there isn’t any room to have all this side plot, character building and meandering descriptions of board meetings. I was not engaged with this read and though it had moments I enjoyed, overall the execution was off. I need a tighter beginning with a grounding in who the characters are and previous events without having to have read a previous book, and I needed more time spent in the mystery, with the detective and on the relationship between Amanda and her doctor. The love triangle was interesting, the murder mystery had potential but the focus of this book was off. This was more about a woman finding her way in her volunteer work and presenting herself as a professional there than about any kind of murder investigation. The ending was terrible and rushed and left me completely disappointed. I would like to try out the next one to see if it builds and improves upon this one, however I do not love having to read two short books like a magazine serial instead of one fully flushed out full length mystery.
This had some solid writing and interesting ideas and I loved that it was set in depression era Boston during prohibition, but I couldn’t thoroughly enjoy it because it was very poorly planned and plotted. What a shame!
I don’t know what to make of this book. The mystery wasn’t even really solved and ended on a cliff hanger *maybe* to be continued in the next book. I can’t tell you how much I dislike that and I’m not yet sold on this series or this author.
Let me elaborate: the mystery in this book was the third storyline at most, much overshadowed by the heroine’s search for her purpose and her love triangle with Dr. Browne and Detective Halloran.
The first part of this book had the feel of a continuing storyline, referring to events like the Valentine’s Ball and speaking of and to characters but not mentioning how they are known. I had to do some digging into the author’s catalogue to find out that this series is a crossover from her Berkshire Cozy Mysteries series and these characters were introduced in a previous book there.
How annoying! This put me off the book right away and things only improved slightly from there.
This was an extremely slow moving mystery with way too much time spent on Amanda’s volunteer work and interior design project. The murder didn’t happen until a third of the way into the book and then nothing was developed in it until near the end. This resulted in a rushed reveal by the criminal, which is the laziest way to write mystery imo.
For a 200 page murder mystery there isn’t any room to have all this side plot, character building and meandering descriptions of board meetings. I was not engaged with this read and though it had moments I enjoyed, overall the execution was off. I need a tighter beginning with a grounding in who the characters are and previous events without having to have read a previous book, and I needed more time spent in the mystery, with the detective and on the relationship between Amanda and her doctor. The love triangle was interesting, the murder mystery had potential but the focus of this book was off. This was more about a woman finding her way in her volunteer work and presenting herself as a professional there than about any kind of murder investigation. The ending was terrible and rushed and left me completely disappointed. I would like to try out the next one to see if it builds and improves upon this one, however I do not love having to read two short books like a magazine serial instead of one fully flushed out full length mystery.
Spoiler
Update: I read the next in the series, and the mystery was not carried over so no real conclusion was given for this murder and no criminal apprehended… so weird.This had some solid writing and interesting ideas and I loved that it was set in depression era Boston during prohibition, but I couldn’t thoroughly enjoy it because it was very poorly planned and plotted. What a shame!