A review by ashleylm
Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes

2.0

It's the sort of book that I might have read ten years ago, not liked very much, and then forgotten ... or possibly the sort of book that I might have read ten years ago, not liked very much at first, but then about a third of the way in it really took off—but I doubt it. I've read 20% of it, and it's boring. All the characters are old white men in exactly the same profession (I'm so tired of mysteries where each suspect is near-identical save for their name) and it'll be a struggle to keep them apart. The mystery element seems to be blah-blah-blah keys and blah-blah-blah locked gate, as if (at a University!) no one's managed to figure out how to climb over a building and drop daintily down into a courtyard, for Pete's sake.

And compared to the other books I have going right now, it suffers. Still, I gave it a go, and it wasn't really for me.

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)