In the Sebastian-I've-found-some-matchsticks vein of PD James, this book takes the gruesome out of multiple murders and replaces it with a blushing, fleeing, overwhelmed forensic profiler who ignores her own demons in favor of a booklong musing on mothers and daughters. This does not a snappy read make.

However, French has a smooth and fluid writing style (always a plus) and does well at painting portraits of emotionally distant adults attempting to screw up their lives with as much Look at Me! Don't Look At Me! panache as possible. This is a skill, but it does not a happy read make.

Additionally, the who of the dunnit was convoluted and overly drawn out. I did really like Julie, the flighty, world-traveling roommate, and would have enjoyed her and Kit in a love triangle.

"Try an olive," Julie said. "I was walking through Soho this afternoon. It's great, ad I bought these olives stuffed with anchovies and chilies. It's like being kicked in the face by a horse. In a good way, I mean."

I chewed one and indeed it did suddenly feel as if a match had been struck on my tongue but I took another gulp of wine and the cool dousing of the hot felt wonderful.

Recommended for fans of drawing-room English lit who are looking to ease into crime fiction. Passes the Bechdel Test.

Ik ben de eerdere boeken van Nicci French aan het herlezen. Ik weet er helemaal niks meer van, maar ik vond deze goed leesbaar en interessant. Ik had pas op het laatst door hoe het zat.

Finally finished reading this one! It took me 6 days to finish, which is ridiculously long time for me. The story wasn’t dragging me, at all. This book gave me an idea how the detectives could be fooled if Kit Quinn didn’t work together with them. There were plots that, in my opinion, were so unnecessary and I actually almost gave up reading it. Hence I only give this 3 stars.

Really quite boring in places and didn't like most of the characters (boring, self-centred). The narrative wasn't good either. Bits of the plot were alright, even enjoyable in places, but it couldn't make up for the rest of the book.

This was a mixed bag for me, to be honest.

On one hand, I liked Kit as a main character. I liked her relationships and I did want to know what was going to happen. The story was more character driven than I thought which is always good.

But the writing style. It was so sparse it was hard to keep up at times. Also the way the connections were made were just...weird. We weren't allowed to make the connections with Kit because they were so random and unexplained. We have Kit linking two seemingly total seperate murders - but with what? Instinct and a few similarties. Then later we have her finding a major clue randomly in the victims house - apparently all the police just totally missed this? Didn't look into the victims background at all? And clues Kit thought of were revealed to us as she revealed them to others so, we still didn't really know what was going on most of the time.

But this did help me get back on track with my reading, though it isn't a hugely hopeful novel really.