Extremely wealthy Sir Hugo Fletcher is found murdered in his posh London home. Can DCI Tom Douglas catch the killer and bring them to justice in the first book in this series?
This is the first Rachel Abbott book that I have read and I thought I would give it a go as she is popular with many of my friends on Goodreads.
Only the Innocent is not a standard British police procedural novel. I did not like the format of this book. The reader knows far more about what is going on than any police officer working on the case. Most of the novel is centred around Laura Fletcher, the victim’s wife. Annoyingly she reveals selected parts of her back story through letters she wrote but never sent to her ex-sister-in-law, Imogen.
There are lots of nagging hints that things in Hugo’s life are simply not right. These doubts are drip-fed to the reader as this story rolls on. I found it irritating how the characters were extremely wealthy, throwing money everywhere without question and their snobbery was outstanding. They thought they were above everyone else and felt their wealth gave them the right to behave however they chose.
Slowly the many secrets surrounding Sir Hugo Fletcher were revealed with the reader always knowing more than the police. I found the plot okay with the surprises coming at the end.
I did not like any of the characters in this novel and found them all arrogant and pushy. Also the blatant eavesdropping annoyed me and the characters appeared so unfair.
Only the Innocent is an OKAY 3 star read with nothing to recommend about it to other readers. There were no golden nuggets to enjoy and the dialogue between characters lacked wit and humour. The best quote I can provide also illustrates the class of people involved and shows why I did not develop any empathy for Sir Hugo etc…
On one occasion, we were just passing a vaporetto stop as a boat pulled in. ‘Oh look, Hugo - can we just hop on this for half an hour, just to see where it takes us?’ ‘Laura, it’s a bus!’ he said. ‘Really, darling, I’m not in the habit of getting on buses, even if they do float and they are in the most beautiful city in the world. If you must take to the water, we’ll hire a launch and you can have a ride after lunch whilst I read the papers. How does that sound?’
Only the Innocent was written in 2011 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.
No comments:
Post a Comment