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I liked this so much (and turns out I've read other Joyce Porters and liked them, she does the Hon Con series), but would have liked it more if there hadn't been so much fat shaming. I'm fairly good about recognizing different times held different attitudes and making allowances (e.g. I'm reading an Edward Eager's children's fantasy which features both black cannibals, and attacking Indians, and I'm rolling my eyes but it's fine, I get it). But, in this book, the victim is apparently very, very, very, very fat, and is constantly referred to in the most negative terms imaginable, as if Ms. Porter had had her entire family killed by a very fat woman and was taking literary revenge. She's laying it on, excuse the pun, a bit thick.
Other than that, it's delightful—an engaging set of well-differentiated suspects, clear clues, she played fair with her readers, the detectives nonetheless were a little sharper than me and solved it before I could, all the things you want from a mystery. It's just that she really has it in for fat people. Now, the main character (Dover himself) is also fat, so maybe she thought she had to pile on the adjectives to make it clear how much more fat poor dead Juliet was. But it's offputting:
"She was so fat that it was frankly unbelievable."
"She kept simpering like a great fat cow"
"All that fat and bouncing flesh—it was revolting!"
(These are the first three mentions of her fat. It goes on like this throughout the book).
And yet she was supposedly not quite so obese as to lack sexually desirability, having various lovers and being widely regarded as the town bad girl.
So as long as you can put up with that (I could, it's annoying but not a deal breaker) everything else was worth reading.
Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.
Other than that, it's delightful—an engaging set of well-differentiated suspects, clear clues, she played fair with her readers, the detectives nonetheless were a little sharper than me and solved it before I could, all the things you want from a mystery. It's just that she really has it in for fat people. Now, the main character (Dover himself) is also fat, so maybe she thought she had to pile on the adjectives to make it clear how much more fat poor dead Juliet was. But it's offputting:
"She was so fat that it was frankly unbelievable."
"She kept simpering like a great fat cow"
"All that fat and bouncing flesh—it was revolting!"
(These are the first three mentions of her fat. It goes on like this throughout the book).
And yet she was supposedly not quite so obese as to lack sexually desirability, having various lovers and being widely regarded as the town bad girl.
So as long as you can put up with that (I could, it's annoying but not a deal breaker) everything else was worth reading.
Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.