Death of a Gossip

I am told that this series gets really good, though this first novel did not contain any evidence of future greatness.

Writing style: Flat and dispassionate.
Characters: Annoying and two dimensional.
Plot: Gratingly predictable.

That said, I've read enough series in which later books are utter classics, but the early books are a slog. I will probably come back and give book 2 a try - but I feel I really need to read something different first for the sake of my teeth - I was grinding them through most of this book.