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Rating: 
Summary: Poorly executed
Review: This was one of 3 books by Lydia Adamson I have read. This is one from the "vet" mystery series. The other 2 were from a "birdwatcher" mystery series and a "out of work actress/catsitter" mystery series I did not find any reason to recommend any of them.The plots are haphazardly constructed. Many of the situations are tortuously contrived. Characters are 2-dimensional and banal. The writing itself is clumsy. The vocabulary and structure seem to be "dumbed down". Perhaps these books are intended for younger readers? The reason I award 2 stars rather than 1 is that there is nothing truly offensive here. It is a predictable "spunky female protagonist solves mystery that baffles bumbling males" kind of story. It is simply more sloppily executed than most. If you enjoy trying to "figure out whodunnit" as you read, these books will disappoint. Most of the pertinent information is only revealed in the last few pages - in a kind of rush to tidy up the loose ends.
Rating:
Summary: Poorly executed
Review: This was one of 3 books by Lydia Adamson I have read. This is one from the "vet" mystery series. The other 2 were from a "birdwatcher" mystery series and a "out of work actress/catsitter" mystery series I did not find any reason to recommend any of them. The plots are haphazardly constructed. Many of the situations are tortuously contrived. Characters are 2-dimensional and banal. The writing itself is clumsy. The vocabulary and structure seem to be "dumbed down". Perhaps these books are intended for younger readers? The reason I award 2 stars rather than 1 is that there is nothing truly offensive here. It is a predictable "spunky female protagonist solves mystery that baffles bumbling males" kind of story. It is simply more sloppily executed than most. If you enjoy trying to "figure out whodunnit" as you read, these books will disappoint. Most of the pertinent information is only revealed in the last few pages - in a kind of rush to tidy up the loose ends.
Rating:
Summary: Not enough attention to details
Review: This was the first Dr Nightingale mystery I have read, and I suspect it will be the last. I found Lydia Adamson's prose style rather wooden, but my real difficulty was with the inexplicable behaviour of her vet character. When Dr Nightingale nearly hits a loose horse on the road, she recognizes it as a Thoroughbred colt -- and yet tells herself that she must have imagined it, because "there are no wild horses in Dutchess County." Dear Reader, there are no wild horses where I live, either. But loose horses do occur, and the normal response by you or me or any reasonable horse person (not to mention our vets!) would be to try and find out who owns the horse and help it get home --- not to shrug it off as Nightingale does. Later in the story, the vet encounters the colt again. This time she tells herself triumphantly, "Nobody thought there were wild horses in this area, but there are!" -- and then proceeds to speculate on whether this colt was bred for the race course or the show ring. If somebody bred him, he isn't "wild," and it is beyond understanding why Dr Nightingale isn't more interested in locating his owner. (As nearly as I can tell, neither is the person who ends up finding the colt last -- and keeps him. If I ever move to a place like Hillsbrook, remind me to check my fences regularly, because lost horses apparently stay lost!) The incident with the two-month-old filly is equally beyond understanding, and does not speak well of the author's knowledge of horses. Faced with an extremely early weanling who has an eye injury and is so wild she is apparently a danger to her own dam, Dr Nightingale and the foal's owner do not even discuss what might be causing the filly's bizarre behaviour. When it transpires that the filly is cribbing in her stall and creating flying wood chips that are irritating her eye, nobody mentions that her bad habit might be born of the stress of such an early separation from her dam (though Adamson includes a lecture on cribbing that sounds like it was lifted straight out of a veterinary manual). (The fact that foals of this age possess only 4 to 6 front teeth that can barely scrape a carrot into bits, let alone wood, I will leave for the present...) At any rate, instead of attempting to get the foal under control, the vet stands in the stall and baits her with sugar. I would agree with this procedure if a) the horse in question had any training at all and therefore might be controllable when finally caught, and b) there was any reason to expect the horse knew what sugar was. (How did this unhandled filly learn that -- or notice it while she was charging about?) Under the circumstances it is not likely that a little sugar and a smack in the eye with a sponge wielded by a fast-moving hand would cause the filly to suddenly love the vet. That swipe at her head would be likelier to scare her to death. Add to this the fact that the whole murder plot hinges on the twin presumptions that people who buy registered horses never attempt to transfer ownership to themselves, and that there are no export laws in the United States (or else the plot is a lot bigger than the author lets on) and you have a mystery that features a vet, but is best left alone by horse people. I really hate it when a cover blurb build up my hopes for a good story about animals and people, only to let me down in such spectacular fashion.
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