Negative Positive
Title: Mildly entertaining, poorly written mystery.
Review: As someone who works in Boston, I really enjoyed the setting of Peale's book. Also, the character of Addington Ames and his sister Carolyn are fairly well drawn. It is too bad then that the mystery itself isn't more intriguing or the writing better conceived. Although Peale has clearly done some research on 1890s Boston Brahmin social and city life, it almost seems as if she never completely integrated the information into the mystery, making it little more than just a superficial, guided tour of Victorian Boston. The writing was frequently awkward and some of the dialogue jarring. Also, there are many scenes where the POV shifts from one character to the next; something that I have been told by a writing instructor is a definite "no-no" in fiction writing. All in all, I really did want to like this book and it is still diverting enough to be read quickly. However, it does seem to me that it could have been a lot better.
Is the review positive or negative? 