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A review by hanrutous16
Murder on the menu by Alex Coombs
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.75
This was an incredibly frustrating novel.
Firstly, the title is clearly very over done and there are a lot of books with the same name. I know names and titles aren’t copyrighted but it wasn’t an auspicious start.
Next was the portrayal of the woman protagonist. The good looking by normal standards protagonist. The chef who does yoga and goes running and has a flat stomach and bakes and works 18 hour days. With no personally beyond her job and whowho accepts a £7000 oven as payment for doing an amateur investigation into a murder from the brains behind it. Charlie was two dimensional and disinteresting as a character - even when she was beaten up it was hard to feel sorry for her.
The book was filled with other characters who were caricatures. The rich, disinterested earl, the annoyed, loyal policeman, the village idiot (harsh phrasing but if Francis was compared to a dog one more time I probably wouldn’t have made it through the book), the awesome young university waitresswho manages to hack into the phone of the main bad guy in order to save the protagonist’s life - what a coincidence! There was nothing redeeming about the way a single character was written. The village didn’t receive much better treatment. I have no idea how big the village was, but getting 30 people on a January Tuesday for lunch feels unrealistic.
The author is also a chef and wow did you know that whilst reading this novel. Food isn’t used cleverly to foreshadow or to enhance the plot or the mystery. It’s just described in painstaking detail.
Oh and the ‘big reveal’? Called it within the first two chapters. Not really a mystery.
In case I’m being too subtle, this was not a book for me. Would definitely not read again.
Firstly, the title is clearly very over done and there are a lot of books with the same name. I know names and titles aren’t copyrighted but it wasn’t an auspicious start.
Next was the portrayal of the woman protagonist. The good looking by normal standards protagonist. The chef who does yoga and goes running and has a flat stomach and bakes and works 18 hour days. With no personally beyond her job and who
The book was filled with other characters who were caricatures. The rich, disinterested earl, the annoyed, loyal policeman, the village idiot (harsh phrasing but if Francis was compared to a dog one more time I probably wouldn’t have made it through the book), the awesome young university waitress
The author is also a chef and wow did you know that whilst reading this novel. Food isn’t used cleverly to foreshadow or to enhance the plot or the mystery. It’s just described in painstaking detail.
Oh and the ‘big reveal’? Called it within the first two chapters. Not really a mystery.
In case I’m being too subtle, this was not a book for me. Would definitely not read again.