Take a photo of a barcode or cover
upsettispaghetti 's review for:
The Blackhouse
by Peter May
I'm giving this two stars because while this is objectively a pretty good book, I hated it.
The synopsis for this book promises "A MURDER, A SECRET, AND A TRAP" so, silly me, I was expecting some kind of thriller. The book starts with a discovery of a brutal murder on a tiny Scottish isle which may have connections to a similar murder on the mainland. Good start... and then that storyline is completely abandoned for about 70% of the book, apart from a few paragraphs among the chapters of flash-backs to remind us that present-day Fin is totally still looking for the murderer, guys, pinky swear, but anyway here's some more about his kind of tragic but mostly boring childhood.
As far as "A SECRET AND A TRAP" are concerned, yeah, we get to that about 80 pages before the end of the book. There is a twist. It's a good twist. It does not make up for pages 75-400 of this book.
Again, this is a good book. If it were advertised as more of a contemporary family drama with some mysterious plot points, I probably would have liked it. I've never read anything set on a Scottish isle, or with characters speaking Gaelic and going on dangerous bird hunting trips on cliffs. That stuff was great, but this certainly was not a thriller, and the "EVIL LIES WITHIN" line on the cover is the most hilarious mis-marketing of any book. Ever.
The synopsis for this book promises "A MURDER, A SECRET, AND A TRAP" so, silly me, I was expecting some kind of thriller. The book starts with a discovery of a brutal murder on a tiny Scottish isle which may have connections to a similar murder on the mainland. Good start... and then that storyline is completely abandoned for about 70% of the book, apart from a few paragraphs among the chapters of flash-backs to remind us that present-day Fin is totally still looking for the murderer, guys, pinky swear, but anyway here's some more about his kind of tragic but mostly boring childhood.
As far as "A SECRET AND A TRAP" are concerned, yeah, we get to that about 80 pages before the end of the book. There is a twist. It's a good twist. It does not make up for pages 75-400 of this book.
Again, this is a good book. If it were advertised as more of a contemporary family drama with some mysterious plot points, I probably would have liked it. I've never read anything set on a Scottish isle, or with characters speaking Gaelic and going on dangerous bird hunting trips on cliffs. That stuff was great, but this certainly was not a thriller, and the "EVIL LIES WITHIN" line on the cover is the most hilarious mis-marketing of any book. Ever.