Death of a Ghostwriter is a cosy mystery set in the fictional village of Monksworthy.
Sylvie is a happy wife and loves her job
running the local tea room surrounded by the most scrumptious pastries day
after day. When her husband, Albert, leaves on one of his working weeks, she
kisses him goodbye and wishes him a safe trip. But Albert doesn’t make it to
his destination. Not long after he leaves, he is involved in a fatal car
accident. And when Sylvie arrives at the mortuary to identify the body, her
world is thrown into turmoil when she finds out that two other women are
claiming Albert as their husband. Then the police reveal that it looks as
though Albert’s brakes were tampered with. The plot thickens!
The premise sounded great and the idea of
the wives all finding out about each other and the possibility of murder made
for a story I wanted to dive into. The subtle clues about the ending are only
hinted at in the beginning, which is good. The story starts off quickly and
straight away you want to find out why it happened and who these other women
are. But the pace slacks off and you find yourself having to read for the sake
of reading to get to the next book.
The style is very light but tended towards
being too much in places. And by that I mean it felt forced and as though the
scene was pushed at you rather than you being in the scene. Some conversations
felt unnecessary and for sixty-something year olds they tended to speak a lot
younger and a lot more energetically (if you can imagine a bunch of girls
squealing and gushing over something). There was a lot of eating and drinking
involved in this too for some reason.
Now, while I understand that a cosy mystery
has the characters investigating, it seemed the police did very little in this
and that the ladies were able to find out far too much by themselves. That they
could get in touch with “all” the people of a certain money class seemed a
stretch too. And since the title had ghostwriter in it, there was actually very
little to do with this. It felt like a missed opportunity for a subplot. And
then the ending. All of that and it was over so quickly? I don’t mind a
build-up but to just have action, action, action and then “cut”? Left me
wanting more.
It’s a good book but not enough that I’d
read it again. If you need a rainy day afternoon read then this is for you.
Thanks to NetGalley, Joffe Books, and the
author for the opportunity to review the book.