Plot or Premise

Leonora Quinn wants Cormoran to find Owen, her writer husband. He’s missing, but she’s pretty sure it is just simple neglect, nothing foul. He goes off regularly but usually returns in short order, if only to be with their special needs daughter. This time? 10 days without a word, and she doesn’t want to involve the police again, as they made too big a fuss the previous time when it turned out he was just with a friend. The difference is that this time, he’s written a thinly-veiled fictionalized biography about his publishing acquaintances that has ticked off most of them, and maybe one of them was ticked off enough to do something to prevent it from being published.

What I Liked

The tell-all premise is awesome, at first at least, and the darkness of the story as it progresses is quite solid. The agent is deliciously salacious. As I read it, I kept picturing a rougher version of Harriet Sansom Harris who played the agent on Frasier. Once the story widens out into a full suspect list, it flies along at a good pace with lots of leads to follow. Plus Robin gets a bit more to do in this one.

What I Didn’t Like

The initial darkness of the story doesn’t stand up to the overall explanation at the end, almost a little banal. And there is way too much time at the start of the book trying to find a) a copy of the manuscript and b) interpreting who it is even referencing (aka the list of suspects). But what I particularly don’t enjoy is the immature romantic stylings among the main characters. Not childish, exactly, although there are aspects of that too, so much as simply no emotional or intellectual capacity to deal with the basic aspects of a relationship. With a bit of comedy, it could rise almost to farce.

The Bottom Line

Come for the mystery, stay for the publishing personalities