My "guilty pleasure" choice is suppose to be a fun read. Not too challenging, not to deep, a book I can't wait to get my hands on and jump into. And this one seemed a perfect choice! Found it on display in an independent book store on Cape Cod. With tag lines like, "How well can you know anyone" "Utterly compelling" "I couldn't put it down" I thought this was a sure winner! Wrong!
While I'm not always opposed to reading English authors, I do approach them with hesitation and I should have done so with this one. There were constant cultural references to England that I was clueless about, English terms and vernacular that left me stymied and I got tired of having to stop and look these up in what should have been a casual cover to end read for me.
The book was also more gruesome than it needed to be - oozing brain matter was rather popular with Mr. Marwood. I kept reading the book long after I wanted to scrap it simply because I wanted to know how the mystery end. The last 30 pages or so did provide some thrills (and of course more brain matter), but it certainly wasn't enough to make the entire read compelling. Very disappointed.
