Yay! My first Netgalley! I was always a lonely reader living my reading life outside of the internet, but since I have you my fellow bloggers I learned about the existence of Netgalley (last person in the world, yet again! I’m actually starting to feel special). And since I’m on a booking ban and I already stole all books I could from my family home, and my amazon wishlist has grown exponentially over the last 9 weeks and still I want new books all the time, I decided to try Netgalley.

A man dies in the Reading Room at British Museum (incidentally mentioned some time ago in a post by BookerTalk as one of the places where writers write). Henry Fairhurst is a witness of the man’s death and he wants to assist the police in the investigation; the feeling is not readily reciprocated, but Inspector Shelley will come round, even if with a dose of impatience.

The book was entertaining, somehow it brought to my mind tea and cookies, it was probably caused by quite archaic language. It is a classic whodunnit, with red herrings, chase and plot twists, even if the ending feels a bit improbable.

The characters sometimes feel a bit sketchy, like their more figures than real people, with only one or two aspects of their personality indicated. I got the feeling everyone was a tiny bit phlegmatic with random bursts of energy usually expressed as roaring. Sometimes it read almost like Three Men in a Boat would conduct the investigation.

What surprised me was that several times when suspicious death is mentioned in the conversation the characters immediately assume it was suicide. Was there so many suicides in 1930’s? And so little murders?

The book was a nice break from more serious reads. I found it interesting document of the times when it was written, and I love the covers design for the entire series. A 3 out of 5.

This ARC was provided by Poisoned Pen Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Photo by Violetta Kaszubowska