**This book was sent to me free of charge by Bethany House Publishing in return for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**
Overview:
Drew Farthering arrives in idyllic Scotland for the 1935
British Open at Muirfield hoping for a relaxing vacation, but he soon finds a
mystery on his hands. Lord Rainsby, his host at Thorburn Hall, fears his
business partner may be embezzling and asks Drew to quietly investigate. Before
Drew can uncover anything, Rainsby is killed in a suspicious riding accident.
Thorburn Hall is filled with guests,
and as Drew continues to dig, he realizes that each might have had a motive.
Together with Madeline and Nick, he must sort through shady business dealings,
international intrigue, and family tensions to find a killer who always seems
to be one step ahead.
My Review:
This is the 6th book in
the Drew Farthering series but it is the first one I’ve read. Because of that, I was a little lost with the
characters but not enough to take away from this story. It takes place in Scotland where Drew, his
wife Madeline, and their friends Nick and Carrie gather at Thorburn Hall to
enjoy the British Open golf tournament.
Instead, their host Lord Rainsby ends up dead by what at first glance
appears to be an accident but turns out to be murder. It then falls to Drew and company to figure
out what really happened.
The story takes place at the
precipice of WWII and I thought the author did a good job of letting it play
into the story without overdoing it.
Hitler wasn’t perceived as a mighty threat at that point so I’m glad she
didn’t have the characters see him as the monster he would come to be. I have a feeling that she was setting the
table for that in later books which would make sense.
It’s a little difficult to talk in
detail about this story without giving away a lot of spoilers but I will say
that I think the characters were a little flat and stereotypical – especially the
lead police officer. I also thought some
aspects of the story were too heavy but went nowhere while others were too
light that had more significant meaning.
It took me a while to get into this
book because I thought the pacing was slow and there was no sense of urgency
from the characters to catch the killer. I prefer a little more action in a
murder-mystery book. That’s not to take away from this story – just my personal
preference.
Another thing I had issue with was that Carrie
spent the whole book being a whiny baby hiding in a hotel room and that more
than anything really annoyed me. If you
have read any of my other reviews, you know that character is the most
important thing to me as a reader and if I don’t connect with them, it’s hard
to like the story. Fortunately, she isn’t
really the main character so I can kind of let that go.
The ending was a little disappointing
because there were threads throughout the book that seemed really important
that turned out to be nothing – almost like the author couldn’t figure out
where to go with them and just gave up.
I know this sounds like a negative and
very unhelpful mixed review but it isn’t meant to be. It isn’t a bad book but it just isn’t my cup
of tea. I am sure there will be lots of people
who really enjoy this type of mystery but for my personal taste, I want to see
a little more depth and coherence. I
will chalk that up to my own shortcomings for not having read any of the
previous books in this series.
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