I am determined to get to the end of the week in this Frieda Klein series and look forward to the Thursday title next. The husband and wife team, Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, have hit upon an interesting mystery formula and their plots are carefully woven and presented.
The usual cast of characters appear in this story: Beside Frieda Klein, her long suffering friend, Chief Inspector Malcolm Karlsson; her love-interest, Sandy; her nemesis Hal Bradshaw; Josef the Ukrainian fix-it man; and, her needy sister-in-law and her sassy niece, Chloe.
People have secrets in this book, especially Ruth Lennox the murder victim and her lover, her husband and her three teenage children. They are the most realistic characters in the novel. Like the other books in this series, the mystery is skillfully presented and keeps the reader guessing and interested. Having said this, I did not enjoy this book as much as I did the first two, and it is not because of the story line. I feel the characters are not as realistically portrayed as in the past. In fact, Frieda is beginning to wear on me. She is depressed and frankly not very pleasant. Her boyfriend, Sandy, is just a caricature. No one could be at her beck and call as he is. Inspector Karlsson is too loyal to be real and Hal Bradshaw is just too manipulative and nasty a person to believe in. However, I continue to enjoy the mystery and hope the next installment will pick up again where the first two books left off.
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