lazygal's review against another edition
3.0
Dublin. A place Ed Loy though he'd escaped. But now, thanks to his mother's death, he's back to do the burial and estate stuff. And, of course, get drawn into the mystery of his old crush's missing husband. Followed by other former mates and acquaintances and family friends coming around, asking for help or offering advice or needing to be asked about the disappearance and other events.
Ed's profession as a private detective in LA stands him in good stead, even though the Guards are a bit skeptical (turns out, there isn't even a process for getting a license to privately detect in Ireland). The world the author builds can keep a series going without stretching things too much and the writing is decent. Of course, being the first, there's a lot of infodumping but with luck that will end in the next book.
Ed's profession as a private detective in LA stands him in good stead, even though the Guards are a bit skeptical (turns out, there isn't even a process for getting a license to privately detect in Ireland). The world the author builds can keep a series going without stretching things too much and the writing is decent. Of course, being the first, there's a lot of infodumping but with luck that will end in the next book.
caitlinxmartin's review against another edition
2.0
I really enjoyed The City of Lost Girls which is the 5th in this series so I thought I'd go back and read the others.
So far this has been a disappointing experiment. Maybe this book suffers in comparison to the later one and it probably isn't helping things that I read it after finishing The Whisperers by John Connolly which I absolutely adored, but the fact is that finishing this was a struggle.
Mr. Hughes writes and plots well, but overall the book is sort of gray and cold and more drab than grim (if it had been more grim it might've been more compelling). It reminds me of the feeling I used to get when I lived in Seattle when February rolled around and days were short, gray, cold, and indescribably dreary and had been that way for the past 350 years or so.
Not a terrible book, but not a great one, either.
So far this has been a disappointing experiment. Maybe this book suffers in comparison to the later one and it probably isn't helping things that I read it after finishing The Whisperers by John Connolly which I absolutely adored, but the fact is that finishing this was a struggle.
Mr. Hughes writes and plots well, but overall the book is sort of gray and cold and more drab than grim (if it had been more grim it might've been more compelling). It reminds me of the feeling I used to get when I lived in Seattle when February rolled around and days were short, gray, cold, and indescribably dreary and had been that way for the past 350 years or so.
Not a terrible book, but not a great one, either.
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