Saturday, September 19, 2015

A Character Study Rather than a Murder Mystery

Georgia, Alice, and Charles have been friends throughout their four years at Harvard. Graduation is almost there when their lives are disrupted by the murder of a classmate, Julia Patel. Rufus Storrow, a professor and house master, is intertwined with the three. He and Georgia, the beautiful daughter of a famous photographer, have an affair, but try to keep it hidden to preserve Storrow's job. Charles, an ambitions, middle-class, young man, has been in love with Georgia since freshman year, but she sees him only as a friend. Alice, a brilliant, unstable girl, has been best friends with Georgia, but she's jealous and after the murder leaks the information about Georgia's affair.

Storrow and Julie Patel were locked in a dispute about what was appropriate for the professor to teach. Because of the disagreement, he becomes the focus of the murder investigation.

The characters in this book are very well drawn and in the beginning pull you into the story. We learn of the murder in the prologue, but it takes well over a third of the book to get to the event. Meanwhile, the author explores the backstory on each of the characters.

I enjoyed the beginning of the book, but quickly got tired of waiting for the murder and detection to start. Even after the dead girl is discovered, the plot goes back to the friends and the professor and we get only small peeks at the process of trying to solve the murder.

Instead of solving the crime. The book continues to cover the lives of the characters for years after the incident. If you're taken with the characters, that may be rewarding, but it your want a resolution to the murder, it's a disappointment
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I reviewed this book for Blogging for Books.  

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