What a wonderful setting for a murder mystery – a murder at
a Romance Writers of Great Britain conference.
A cast of eccentric writers as the main characters and suspects, a
British hotel as the setting, and a young female as the happenstance
sleuth. Throw in a hint of romance and
some humour and you have the recipe for a classic great read. One would think.
I only started to like this book about half way
through. The way the characters are
introduced at the start of the book just doesn’t work for me. The introduction of each character, one at a
time, bringing them all together at the conference didn’t work. This is a method that I find works well in a
movie or television show but not as well in writing. It leaves me with a kind of stop, go, stop,
go feeling. You are just getting into
one character and that character’s story when you are abruptly brought to the
next character. As the old saying goes,
it is a bit like eating Chinese food, one minute you are full and then a half
hour later you are starving.
Once past the rather lengthy intros, the story line and cast
of characters keeps you amused. Since
this is a about a conference for authors and bloggers, there are some
discussions around the ethics of writing, issues of race and the writing
method.
If you like the Mrs. Pollifax stories by Dorothy Gilman or
enjoy Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, you
will probably like this book. I prefer
my murder mysteries to be a little less sedate and a little more intense.
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