Rating: 
Summary: Definately Not a Thriller
Review: This is the first Jill McGown hard-bound book I've bought and it will be the last. Her books have always been enthralling, but I had to force myself to finish this book. Characters, at times, said things that made absolutely no sense so the writing was not tight and clean. By the end, I was just glad the story was over and I could go on to something else. A minor aggravation was two grammatical mistakes Lloyd makes in his speech in the first half of the book when he is supposed to be a stickler for using English correctly. In this novel, Judy has had her baby and there is endless information on the new relationship between Lloyd, Judy and the baby. Yes, their relationship has always been a strong part of her novels, but in this novel, there is more drama than mystery. In fact, the mystery is extremely shortlived. A less-than-sympathetic victim is murdered and Lloyd misses the obvious so many times it makes the reader wonder if he is really a moron who has only been successful in the past because Judy was working with him. McGown totally vindicates every single suspect so that if you don't guess who the murderer is, YOU are a moron. It is so painfully obvious who the murderer is that it is trying to have to keep reading about Lloyd floundering around, never even considering the actual murderer as a suspect. The only surprise is the motive behind the murder, but by the time one gets to the motivation behind the murder, it is of very little interest. There is a subplot about a missing baby but the author unfairly withholds information from the reader and again Lloyd does not investigate that situation like a real cop. Lloyd continually theorizes about who could have done what to whom rather than proceeding with an investigation, and that gets tiring. It is one thing to theorize about motivation or how the murder was accomplished, but to theorize about something that he could be investigating is a waste of Lloyd's time and ours.
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