A review by gsanta1
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
3.0
Read it for the slow descriptions and backstories.
The first half of the book is a list of interrogations and interviews between characters, and not very compelling. You could almost make a bullet point list.
There’s a a few subplot scenes about Duncan and Taylor, but there’s no arc there and they go nowhere.
As you go, the scenes mostly help fill-in the picture.
Like her other book, there is a second murder, and I wonder if that’s going to be a repeating plot device to complicate and pad the books. I’m not too familiar with this genre: is it common to have more than one murder or crime in one novel? Or rather, how common is it?
It’s still not cleared to me how Perez figured out. Perez tells us about the evidence they found, but it’s not explained why he looked there. And the motive wasn’t very strong but I wonder if Cleeve had made it stronger then it would have been too obvious.
Overall, it was a nice journey and it was fun learning about the characters and I like the slow paced.
I’ve read other detective-crime novels that are slow paced, but they often lose my interest with the abundance of tangents and descriptions.
Somehow Cleves doesn’t lose my interest.
The first half of the book is a list of interrogations and interviews between characters, and not very compelling. You could almost make a bullet point list.
There’s a a few subplot scenes about Duncan and Taylor, but there’s no arc there and they go nowhere.
As you go, the scenes mostly help fill-in the picture.
Like her other book, there is a second murder, and I wonder if that’s going to be a repeating plot device to complicate and pad the books. I’m not too familiar with this genre: is it common to have more than one murder or crime in one novel? Or rather, how common is it?
It’s still not cleared to me how Perez figured out. Perez tells us about the evidence they found, but it’s not explained why he looked there. And the motive wasn’t very strong but I wonder if Cleeve had made it stronger then it would have been too obvious.
Overall, it was a nice journey and it was fun learning about the characters and I like the slow paced.
I’ve read other detective-crime novels that are slow paced, but they often lose my interest with the abundance of tangents and descriptions.
Somehow Cleves doesn’t lose my interest.