A Deadly Inside Scoop

2.5 stars. Finally done with this book and I gotta admit that I skimmed through a large part of the last 1/3. This book was... okay. It threatened to be a train wreck at the beginning but improved a bit in the second half, although I think it was overall just serviceable.

I think the biggest problem I had with this book was how a lot of passages and description felt like unnecessary filler, to the point where I could skip through chapters and simply read the beginning and end of each, and still not miss anything vital. The actual mystery-solving felt fairly linear and dull, and was mainly just the protagonist Bronwyn and her best friend Maisie going around asking people about things, or Googling things to find out new information. with the central action being that straightforward, the rest of the narrative just felt like extra padding to make the book run longer than it should've.

The mystery wasn't as illogical as I thought it was going to be at first, but it was also nothing to shout about. I didn't predict who the killer was going to be in the end, but the book also doesn't give readers hints along the way, which is part of the charm of cozy mysteries - you're supposed to be given as much information as the detective/sleuth is so that if you wanted to, you can solve the mystery along with them. In this case, the plot twist comes by itself, there is absolutely no way you could've solved it before the detective/sleuth does.

I wasn't endeared by any of the characters either. The narrative, which i've already mentioned felt bloated and unnecessary, follows a stream of consciousness first-person perspective but Bronwyn just isn't charming or enigmatic enough to keep my attention for that sort of writing. We also spend huge chunks of time reading about stuff that never seem to matter in the end, like when she invented new ice cream flavours, or when she goes in-depth into her previous life in an ad agency in New York before she moved back to her little village to open the ice cream parlour. Her two best friends were also fairly annoying, particularly Maisie with how much she jumped to conclusions about everyone. To be fair, the book seemed a little self-aware about that, and Bronwyn doesn't exactly trust Maisie's judgement either. it doesn't make it any less annoying when Maisie's going around accusing Ari (the only character of Middle Eastern origin in the village too, if I'm not wrong) of being the murderer with such strong conviction, based off nothing but her own dislike of him and a slight discrepancy that she latches on to as incontrovertible evidence that he must be the killer! She's proven wrong about it at the end but barely seems apologetic about it.

The pacing of the book felt a little off as well. By about 27% into the book, we still hadn't found out who the dead body is, who the prime suspect is, and why we should really care. It takes a long time for the mystery to really get going, which it only really does after maybe the 50ish% mark. I'd enjoy it a lot better if there was a more obvious hook for the readers from earlier on - why should we care about who the real killer is? Why should Bronwyn care, for that matter? If the protagonist has no stake in the mystery for nearly half the book, why would the readers?

Overall, a valiant effort for a debut novel and I hope that the subsequent instalments will see some improvement.