Review: The Lying Kind

The Lying Kind by Alison James
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Author EMail recommended Caitlyn Lynch, price was just right and blurb read interesting.
From the beginning it looks like a 3star book to me, it drags on.
While most is standard police work, there is just too much personal stuff here.

And then her dumb partner, aptly named Brickall, as he is as thick as brick in regard to women, makes an unforgivable mistake which has nothing to do with the case. The MC, Rachel Prince, tries to get her partner back, as he is supposed to be such a great help and good policeman - of which I only have her word, nothing I read so far (70%) in this book proves that - the scene at page 186 / 67 % got me so angry, I will give 1 star less, depending on how this finally plays out. Not to spoil anything I will not go into details.
Just saying I would like to have a thriller - which this is certainly not, lacking the pager-turner-quality I expect from a good thriller - where police is working within their rule-book of laws.

The investigation so far stays within that rules, so it is even more unacceptable that Brickall breaks the rules, although warned by the victim and the MC about it. And so far the consequences are as expected, but I would like to see him gone, I do not like him, he does nothing for the story and has no place in a police-force. He displays for me the typical male behaviour, that even I, myself a man, cannot stand "I am the greatest gift to women and can get any woman I want". Which would have been wrong, even if he was a great police-man, of which I have yet to see proof, he does not deserve this job, with that kind of thinking. Later in the books he helps with a certain crucial fact at one time, but that is his only bigger positive contribution I can remember.

As it is his, currently this looks more like a 2 star book, and I might never read anything from this author again.
One of the only good points is, that it plays in the UK and some other European places, these parts are good, and also the international connections feel real.

Now having finished, I cannot decide wether 3 or 2 stars are warranted.
While 2 might be bit harsh, I think, it was way to slow, after a few nice twists ending as expected, at a certain point it was obvious.
As also one storyline was not solved in a to me satisfying way, I will not look for other books from this author and certainly not the sequel of this one.

So, yes, 2.5 stars it is, rounded down to 2 stars. Not recommended, sorry to say, others may differ, and maybe I would be more positive if I finished this faster, but there was no reason, not enough suspense, not enough twists, not enough surprises for me.

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