Jannelies's Reviews > The Close

Having read The Killing Kind and loving it, I was happy to be approved for The Close. Sadly, it was a DNF at about 30%.
No matter how many books I read, I will never ever read a book with a male on the cover without his shirt on and covered with tattoos. And while Josh Derwent probably had no tattoos, and the cover of the book is quite nice, I couldn’t escape the feeling that this book is more about the sexual tension between Maeve and Josh than anything else. There is a suspicious death; a young man is found dead in his car and his husband is a suspect but he has a strong alibi. Maeve has to find out what happened, along with her younger colleague Georgia. Maeve isn’t doing a lot more than worrying about Georgia, whether she’s up to the task or not. Only a day into the case, and Maeve and Josh have to go undercover in Jellicoe Close because there is another suspicious death.
So now we have Maeve who’s worrying about Georgia and Josh who’s worrying about his marriage and his feelings for Maeve. And a street full of people who made it their hobby to know everything about the neighbours, without knowing that one of them may be a killer.
Too many names… there are so many names of potential suspects, the book could have done with a list. And a map, to better understand who’s living where. I lost track soon and that didn’t make reading this book easier. And then the tension between Maeve and Josh which felt more as two teenagers with too many hormones than two adults who apparently been like this for nine books already. I like it when there is a certain chemistry between characters, and it can add a lot to a story, but in this case it took over the story.
This will not withhold me from trying another book by Jane Casey but I will not be running to the bookstore for any more books in this series.
I can understand why this series is so popular, but it’s just not to my taste.

Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins for this review copy.