Lillie Loves to Read
Reader of all kinds of books but favorites genres include mystery, sic-fi, romance, thrillers, YA, fantasy, general fiction, memoirs. I'll try anything once.
The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves
The first book of the Inspector Vera Stanhope mysteries. They've been turned into a tv series that I enjoyed very much. I wanted to see if the books were any good. I started off with the 4th one, Silent Voices, a wonderful mystery. This 1st book is different from Silent Voices in that it doesn't focus on Vera Stanhope as much as it focuses on 2 women who are on the fringes (or so it would seem) of the mystery. We get to meet the Inspector and see how others perceive her.
The mystery was good not great. Although I did flip to the end (as I do for all books), I couldn't quite figure out why this person had committed the murders. I wanted to know more. I have to admit that the murderer seemed to come out of left field. For such a long book, we really don't get to know the murderer. And there were a lot of things thrown into the kitchen sink.
Final verdict: I liked the writing, liked Vera Stanhope but would've liked the murderer to have been someone else.