Member Review
Review by
S.K. D, Reviewer
It’s Goth Weekend in Whitby, a picturesque seaside village which just happens to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Louisa Oldroyd and her friends enjoy the festivities by taking part in a Dracula-themed escape room. The foursome makes their way through the puzzles of the escape room and suddenly, inexplicably, Dom stabs Andrea and flees. The other members rush to help her, but the girl bleeds out and dies despite their attempts to staunch the bleeding.
In a neighboring village, Detective Chief Inspector Jim Oldroyd has a demanding job and a complicated relationship with his ex-wife. When his daughter calls from Whitby to tell him she’s just witnessed a murder, his fatherly instincts override his police training, and he rushes to her side. Satisfied Louisa is only shaken and not injured, he takes a closer look at the facts where he finds reason to suspect the solution to the murder isn’t as cut and dried as it seems to be.
Oldroyd and his coworkers join the local police in the investigation and uncover disturbing and contradictory information. The story follows Oldroyd, his daughter, and the remaining members of the group of friends as the investigation proceeds through many a twist and turn.
It’s got all the makings of a good, British mystery and delivers a pleasant read. Here are a few things I want to point out:
Things I Like
Sufficiently complex plot—Enough is going on to keep my interest (and that’s not easy these days.) We have Goth Weekend (see next bullet), an escape room, a murder, an apparent suicide, shady dealings by one and all, and a bit of romance.
Lots of local color—The Whitby Goth Weekend is a new one for me—can’t believe I’ve not heard of this before. I loved the descriptions of the festival, the village, and the other bits of history the author points out along the way. Made me want to read Dracula again—and, more importantly, discovering the Whitby Goth Weekend exists compels me to don my blackest dress for the next one—after the plague is over.
Inobtrusive backstory—The author doesn’t do huge info-dumps. The backstory unfolds in an organic manner most of the time as the mystery progresses. I can’t explain how much I appreciate this!
Things That Need Work
British mysteries often take a leisurely pace, but I felt The Whitby Murders needed some jazzing up. The book would benefit from a good revision to remove repetition. The author is writing in multiple points of view and sometimes goes over the same ground from different perspectives. In my opinion, this slows down the action. It’s a good mystery just the same. And the author clearly differentiates between characters as the POV changes, so I didn’t feel lost or untethered (any more than usual, anyway).
Character development is good—but not great. The characters have a lot going on and the author does a fine job of building each one—BUT with so many characters I needed some specific traits upon which to hang my hat. Efforts were made in this direction, but I can’t say the character development is any more than adequate.
Missed opportunities to write action scenes--Too often, the action is described after the fact in dialogue or narration instead of in a scene in which the event is lived by the characters. This falls into the dreaded realm of Telling-And-Not-Showing. This manifests in a couple of other ways, too, which results in anti-climactic paragraphs and unrealized potential.
I give The Whitby Murders 4 blood spatters out of 5—which is my amusing Gothic way of saying it’s a decent story, well-worth a read. I would recommend it to a friend who enjoys cozy mysteries or British police drama.
In a neighboring village, Detective Chief Inspector Jim Oldroyd has a demanding job and a complicated relationship with his ex-wife. When his daughter calls from Whitby to tell him she’s just witnessed a murder, his fatherly instincts override his police training, and he rushes to her side. Satisfied Louisa is only shaken and not injured, he takes a closer look at the facts where he finds reason to suspect the solution to the murder isn’t as cut and dried as it seems to be.
Oldroyd and his coworkers join the local police in the investigation and uncover disturbing and contradictory information. The story follows Oldroyd, his daughter, and the remaining members of the group of friends as the investigation proceeds through many a twist and turn.
It’s got all the makings of a good, British mystery and delivers a pleasant read. Here are a few things I want to point out:
Things I Like
Sufficiently complex plot—Enough is going on to keep my interest (and that’s not easy these days.) We have Goth Weekend (see next bullet), an escape room, a murder, an apparent suicide, shady dealings by one and all, and a bit of romance.
Lots of local color—The Whitby Goth Weekend is a new one for me—can’t believe I’ve not heard of this before. I loved the descriptions of the festival, the village, and the other bits of history the author points out along the way. Made me want to read Dracula again—and, more importantly, discovering the Whitby Goth Weekend exists compels me to don my blackest dress for the next one—after the plague is over.
Inobtrusive backstory—The author doesn’t do huge info-dumps. The backstory unfolds in an organic manner most of the time as the mystery progresses. I can’t explain how much I appreciate this!
Things That Need Work
British mysteries often take a leisurely pace, but I felt The Whitby Murders needed some jazzing up. The book would benefit from a good revision to remove repetition. The author is writing in multiple points of view and sometimes goes over the same ground from different perspectives. In my opinion, this slows down the action. It’s a good mystery just the same. And the author clearly differentiates between characters as the POV changes, so I didn’t feel lost or untethered (any more than usual, anyway).
Character development is good—but not great. The characters have a lot going on and the author does a fine job of building each one—BUT with so many characters I needed some specific traits upon which to hang my hat. Efforts were made in this direction, but I can’t say the character development is any more than adequate.
Missed opportunities to write action scenes--Too often, the action is described after the fact in dialogue or narration instead of in a scene in which the event is lived by the characters. This falls into the dreaded realm of Telling-And-Not-Showing. This manifests in a couple of other ways, too, which results in anti-climactic paragraphs and unrealized potential.
I give The Whitby Murders 4 blood spatters out of 5—which is my amusing Gothic way of saying it’s a decent story, well-worth a read. I would recommend it to a friend who enjoys cozy mysteries or British police drama.
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