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Title: What a letdown!
Review: Like many other Nevada Barr fans, I'm eager to read each new book. This one was a serious disappointment. The writing is stilted, packed with florid adjectives and mixed metaphors. What happened to the lean, mean prose Barr used to write?? In the novel, Anna is reading a Wilkie Collins novel, which made me wonder if Barr has immersed herself in that genre to the point where she is emulating it. Whatever the case, it doesn't work. I've read Collins' books several times and never feel I was wading through dense prose and tortured clauses -- which is how I've felt slogging through this book. (Which makes me wonder why professional reviewers don't mention these things and spare readers the cost of the hardback...)
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