Book Review: Death Overdue

Book Review: Death Overdue

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I wanted to like this book. I mean...a library that is haunted?
Yes!
A cat?
Yes!
Halloween? In New England?
Yes! Yes! Yes!

And....no.

Let's list The Sins of the Book, shall we?

I have mentioned in a previous post that often, a writer's choice of words can be detrimental to their work. (Yes, it can also be beneficial, but I'm focusing on the opposite end of the spectrum.)

1.) What's my age again?
(Poor word choices and descriptions.)

The wrong word can date a book beyond repair. Example: if you read a book today, and a character used the "coolio" as a positive affirmation ("Let's meet up at the gym at 2." - "Coolio, see you then." You would immediately groan and it would suck some of the fun out of the book. (I am not, of course referring to books that are intended to take place in a certain time period.)
We've also all read books where the author is writing an age group incorrectly due to somehow failing to correct generation gaps. (Most often seen with older writers trying to write younger characters.)

Author Allison Brook makes a number of the two above mistakes.
Here are some quotes:
Chapter 1: "I ran my fingers the spikes sticking up from my scalp. Ever since high school, I'd been a rebel in the looks department."



Alarm bells start going off. Because even though they have mentioned the main character is meant to be 29, the hairstyle (and face) I immediately imagine is this one:

image source

Ok. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the author intended it to be an edgy pixie cut.

A few paragraphs later: "If she gave me another lecture on proper attire, this time I knew my rights. The library hadn't had a dress code for its employees since 1963. Still, I tugged at the ends of my tunic, which refused to budge any lower than midthigh over my leggings."

Um...ok. Definite orange flags being raised here. First of all, "tunic" is an extremely dated word, and we are meant to be getting the sense that our main character is a fashion rebel.
NOT getting that feeling, Ms. Brook. In fact, this description only confirms my earlier image from the hair style description.

Chapter 2: (Our main character now has a better job she needs to dress for.) "Good bye, Goth Carrie, I thought..."

Wait....

Now, the author did mention that in chapter one, "Carrie" had purple hair. But it still made me think of those old women with the short spiky hair-dos that dye their hair fun colors. There was literally nothing about our main character that indicates she might be goth. Or even funky. (Or fun.)

Further, whenever our main character refers to her purse - wallet - wristlet - clutch - handbag - tote - literally anything else - you know what she calls it?
A Pocketbook.
Pocketbook is an even more dated term than tunic. The last person I heard refer to the thing women carry their stuff in as a 'pocketbook' is my grandma. 
Using that word is fine if your character is 50+. It's an alarm when the character is meant to be 29.

Later, our character shows how incredibly dull she is by wearing this outfit: 
"...decided to wear brown leggings, a beige blouse with a pattern of horses, a long beige cardigan, and of course, my new boots." ← (Which were brown.)  

2.) I gragidated the 6th grade.
(The main character is somehow a dipstick when we're meant to think otherwise.)

The main character expresses: "I was a bit annoyed that he hadn't told me about Al's being poisoned and his iPad disappearing when he'd questioned me the second time..."

Why would he?

The characters are not friends, lovers, or anything of the sort. She is a relative outsider and a private citizen. He is a cop. He's not just going to randomly share information with you, main character. Other mystery writers at least have to come up with some plausible reason a detective would include a civilian in their investigation. It wasn't like she had discovered the body and had mysterious information she didn't know she had so the police would want to talk with her to jog her memory or something.

Further to this sin, on the one occasion she does actually find something (pointed out to her by the ghost, which we will explore further), she actually is like "I'm not going to share evidence with them because they won't share with me." 
Why would they?
YOU ARE A CIVILIAN! You are not even a P.I. You have literally no reason for them them to share evidence with you!!! 
 

3.) Poor plotting, point-by-point writing.
Which leads me to the next sin, which is the cardinal rule of cozy mysteries. If the main character is an amateur sleuth, they should probably do some actual sleuthing. Our main character, Carrie, spends the book like this: 

Describes outfit. - Goes to event. - Gives weirdly detailed description of food and what everyone eats. - Talks. - Goes home. - Goes to work. - Gives list of each work activity in stupid detail. - Goes home. - Gives weirdly detailed description of food and what everyone eats. - Talks. - Describes outfit. - Gives weirdly detailed description of food and what everyone eats. - Gives list of each work activity in stupid detail.

She only snoops once in the entire book and at the time it kind of makes zero sense why she would choose that moment, except the author wanted to wrap the book up. She does very little actual investigating or trying to coyly pry information out of the police. (Also goes under 'focusing on the wrong things.')

4.)  Is that a tack (on)?
The cat. The cat appears randomly about 3/4 of the way through the book and has zero impact on the plot and then after a handful of pages, is never mentioned again. Tacked on, anyone?

5.) Focusing on the wrong things.
Halloween/New England.  On the first page, we get the description of chilly wind and crisp October leaves. Later, we are treated to the details of planning a Halloween party for the library. And that is pretty much it for atmosphere. Now, not all books require a strong sense of atmosphere & location, but people reading cozy mysteries generally expect it. And if it takes place around/during a holiday, it BETTER have atmosphere coming out of those pages! However, Brook is far more concerned with detailing what people order for lunch and how much library parties cost than creating mood or atmosphere. BOO! HISS!

6.) Lazy writing (Characters of Convenience).
Then we come to The Ghost. 

The ghost is just this random exposition dump, basically. Like, she serves no real purpose other than to point the heroine in the right direction, because she's too busy being worried about her not-goth wardrobe to actually investigate. 

And the ghost just appears. It's not spooky or fun or a slow reveal or even a mystery. 

Chapter one, the ghost, Evelyn, just appears and is like "I knew you had a gift but I waited until you were going to stick around until I revealed myself. So don't freak out when I tell you I'm a ghost." 

(I'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty damn close to the actual conversation.)  And then our ghost friend just occasionally hangs out with the main character. They chat, Ghosty tells Carrie information about other characters. Shrug. She's literally just another character, except she only interacts with Carrie. 

LAME SAUCE.

7.) Name/age/occupation.

The author is creating a series based on this character and town, which is fine. But she is so eager to introduce the reader to EVERYONE IN TOWN that the characters are mostly known by name and occupation and are often difficult to keep track of. 

8.) No hills on this hike:
And lastly, Carrie is coddled and/or adored by just about everyone in the book. She has no struggles. Our heroine needs her own place to stay? How about a guy who is a notorious hard-ass gives her a $400+ monthly discount on monthly rent to let her move into his fully furnished cabin on several acres and a quiet river? And since she's so great, she doesn't have to pay first month's rent, either. 

And then he promptly takes off a day later and from then on she's like "he's so dreamy, we have such a great connection, what's between us is undeniable, does he like me, too?" (Guess what? He DOES, because OF COURSE HE DOES.)  

Even the few 'conflicts' she has with a co-worker at the library are minor and solved within pages with no fall-out and by the end of the book, even her 'enemies' have come around to see how great she is.

So, to sum up: 

G R O A N.