Plots and Errors (Detective Chief Inspector Lloyd & Judy Hill Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: A Little Too Much Maybe?
Review: I love Jill McGown's books and I'm a real fan of Lloyd and Hill, but this book is a bit too much. I really enjoyed the first half of the book, but it just got a bit too complicated with the plots and counterplots, blind and double-blind. This did take away from the story somewhat. In this book we have a lot of murders and it's up to Lloyd and Hill to try to connect them all and to determine motive and opportunity for each of them. At first a couple are found dead in their vehicle in their garage, apparently from suicide, but there are a number of "little Puzzles" about the deaths. Why are their groceries put away in the wrong cupboards, for example? Then there is another body - this time a very rich matriarch, found shot in her home. Lloyd and Hill, in their quest to find the killer encounter a truly disfunctional family and enough hate and animosity to sataisfy anyone looking for motive, but all is not as it seems. It just takes a little too long for the reader to get to the solution this time.

Rating:
Summary: A Little Too Much Maybe?
Review: I love Jill McGown's books and I'm a real fan of Lloyd and Hill, but this book is a bit too much. I really enjoyed the first half of the book, but it just got a bit too complicated with the plots and counterplots, blind and double-blind. This did take away from the story somewhat. In this book we have a lot of murders and it's up to Lloyd and Hill to try to connect them all and to determine motive and opportunity for each of them. At first a couple are found dead in their vehicle in their garage, apparently from suicide, but there are a number of "little Puzzles" about the deaths. Why are their groceries put away in the wrong cupboards, for example? Then there is another body - this time a very rich matriarch, found shot in her home. Lloyd and Hill, in their quest to find the killer encounter a truly disfunctional family and enough hate and animosity to sataisfy anyone looking for motive, but all is not as it seems. It just takes a little too long for the reader to get to the solution this time.

Rating:
Summary: intriguing but eventually tiresome
Review: I stumbled upon this book, not having heard of Jill McGown. But it was a happy accident. I'm not much of a fan of British police procedurals (too convoluted) but I was completely taken by this book, particularly her literary device of changing the timing in the various acts. It caught me by surprise, I didn't think I'd get into it and ended up fascinated. Unfortunately, by the last 1/4 of the book, I was tired of the plot twists and was reminded again of why I don't much like this genre.

Rating:
Summary: intriguing but eventually tiresome
Review: I stumbled upon this book, not having heard of Jill McGown. But it was a happy accident. I'm not much of a fan of British police procedurals (too convoluted) but I was completely taken by this book, particularly her literary device of changing the timing in the various acts. It caught me by surprise, I didn't think I'd get into it and ended up fascinated. Unfortunately, by the last 1/4 of the book, I was tired of the plot twists and was reminded again of why I don't much like this genre.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious
Review: I, too,was looking forward to another Lloyd and Hill mystery and enjoyed the beginning 72 pages of the "police procedural" but I was dismayed to discover that on page 77 I was going to be thrown backwards in time into the world of the "already dead" via a series of long flashbacks. After groping my way through the next fifty or so pages, I realized I was being given way WAY too much information via these flashbacks, and that they were going to go on and on ... and on. I wanted to discover all about the crimes and the characters involved in these intriguing murders ALONG with the police and other "outside" characters. Why oh why are we being forced to choke down more and more massive volumes of 500 pages that could (and should) have been written with greater clarity, crispness and tension in under 300 pages? Terribly disappointing. Even strong writing is weakened by lengthy over-written repetitive passages such as the ones in this novel. Too bad. I had to quit half way through. I just didn't care enough to keep plugging on.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious
Review: I, too,was looking forward to another Lloyd and Hill mystery and enjoyed the beginning 72 pages of the "police procedural" but I was dismayed to discover that on page 77 I was going to be thrown backwards in time into the world of the "already dead" via a series of long flashbacks. After groping my way through the next fifty or so pages, I realized I was being given way WAY too much information via these flashbacks, and that they were going to go on and on ... and on. I wanted to discover all about the crimes and the characters involved in these intriguing murders ALONG with the police and other "outside" characters. Why oh why are we being forced to choke down more and more massive volumes of 500 pages that could (and should) have been written with greater clarity, crispness and tension in under 300 pages? Terribly disappointing. Even strong writing is weakened by lengthy over-written repetitive passages such as the ones in this novel. Too bad. I had to quit half way through. I just didn't care enough to keep plugging on.