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Hush by Kate White

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Miss Moppet
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Hush by Kate White

Post by Miss Moppet » Fri May 7th, 2010, 2:41 am

This book has a great premise. Lake Warren has a one-night-stand with an attractive doctor working at the NYC fertility clinic where she is a PR consultant. After a nap on his terrace she comes back into the bedroom to find he's been murdered. She doesn't call the police because her estranged husband is demanding full custody of her children and were she to become a suspect in a murder investigation, it would provide him with the ammunition he needs to take the kids away. Lake starts her own investigation and soon begins to suspect that the clinic has its own dark secrets.

I loved the way the tension built as Lake has to go to work at the clinic the day after the murder and try to act normally while she waits for the body to be discovered. I enjoyed the New York setting and I liked the way that the theme of parenthood related both to Lake's personal life and to the mystery she has to solve. But it felt just like that - a mystery, with not enough meat for a thriller. The sinister goings-on at the clinic were very intriguing but ultimately turned into a damp squib. After compulsively reading through most of the book, the denouement came as a disappointment to me and the last few pages consisted of recapping and wrapping up various promising story strands with a line or two. I love Kate White's Bailey Weggins mysteries, but this 'standalone thriller', released in hardback and beautifully packaged, felt oversold - less satisfying and less well constructed than a Bailey mystery.

I sympathised with Lake, who is a very different character to Bailey - much less confident and feisty. Unlike the Bailey books, this novel is written in the third person - possibly in an attempt to shed any 'chicklit' connotations - but White doesn't seem as comfortable with this form of narrative. She never takes the opportunity to shift point of view - the whole book is seen through Lake's eyes.

A great book to throw in your valise for a weekend away, but it left me hoping Bailey hasn't hung up her slingbacks just yet.

Cross-posted to Amazon, Goodreads and The Misadventures of Moppet

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