This book is the first I have read by the author although it is, apparently, part of a series about the character, Jane Tennison. As I understand it, this is a prequel, so the lack of familiarity didn't really cause me any problems.
At the risk of sounding like the spoiled American that I am, my reading was slowed down by the British-ness of the story. In this particular book, Jane becomes the first woman on the "Flying Squad," which was an elite group within the British police force who investigated major robberies. The book eventually does explain that, about 100 pages in, but I was clueless until I finally consulted Google. What really bogged me down, though, was the sheer number of characters to keep track of. Not only are there a lot of them, but each one gets referred to at various points by his or her Christian names, nicknames and, in the case of the other members of the squad, their ranks. I found that terribly confusing. Also, there was a side story involving Jane's family that just seemed rather pointless.
The cover of the book proclaims that this is "A Jane Tennison thriller." I'd say a "procedural" might be a better description, because there isn't much here that seems very thrilling. Things picked up toward the end of the book, but at nearly 500 pages it plods along for an awful long time to get there. It's not a bad book, overall, but it's definitely not the most exciting thing I've ever read.
At the risk of sounding like the spoiled American that I am, my reading was slowed down by the British-ness of the story. In this particular book, Jane becomes the first woman on the "Flying Squad," which was an elite group within the British police force who investigated major robberies. The book eventually does explain that, about 100 pages in, but I was clueless until I finally consulted Google. What really bogged me down, though, was the sheer number of characters to keep track of. Not only are there a lot of them, but each one gets referred to at various points by his or her Christian names, nicknames and, in the case of the other members of the squad, their ranks. I found that terribly confusing. Also, there was a side story involving Jane's family that just seemed rather pointless.
The cover of the book proclaims that this is "A Jane Tennison thriller." I'd say a "procedural" might be a better description, because there isn't much here that seems very thrilling. Things picked up toward the end of the book, but at nearly 500 pages it plods along for an awful long time to get there. It's not a bad book, overall, but it's definitely not the most exciting thing I've ever read.