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Title: Worst mystery I've read in years.
Review: This book has got to be the worst-written mystery ever. The plot itself is so-so (once you get past the idea that a small town has three soap stores in it), but the characters are one-dimensional and their relationships with each other are paint-by-number. Every so often the author gives a perfunctory nod to the fact that it's supposed to be a mystery and mentions the crime or the policewoman (for whom the narrator clearly has zero respect, despite their on-again off-again relationship). I'm not even going to give this book to my mother to read. I couldn't bear for her to waste her time reading it.
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