Jan Elizabeth Watson

Book received though First Reads in exchange for an honest review, thank you!

So it starts with a neurotic, true-crime obsessed patron in a library... and I think to myself, damn! How does goodreads now that I am a library employee with a current obsession with cannibal killers? Then I think, well because I told goodreads, that's why. Anyway, narcissistic crazy patron is working on a crime novel and teaching.

She seems like a terrible person, but only in the way that we are all terrible people, sometimes. We are seeing her in one of her sometimes: a character with self-pity cloaked in self-depreciation filled with constant mild hostility. I don't know yet if reading this will be entertaining or irritating. Probably irritating. This particular kind of unlikable character is awfully trendy these days.

Update:
Hahaha, probably irritating is correct. Alas, after getting to know the characters the plot was kinda boring.… (mehr)

Vera Lundy, a frustrated crime writer, has taken a long-term substitute English teaching assignment at a prestigious private school. One of her students stands out, reminding Very of herself at that age. When another student is found murdered, Vera wonders how this crime is related to previous others, and finds herself immersed in the police’s attempts to solve these crimes. Compounding the investigation are wrongly accused, other disappearing students and coincidences. Fortunately, one of the guilty in an act of unselfishness confesses his part to the police and Vera, something I found totally unbelievable, as is much of this book. The only interesting parts actually concerned her insights into being a new teacher in a small school. The “shivery thriller” parts were so boring I would never recommend it for those parts.… (mehr)