I'm a lazy reader. I want the narrative to take me for a ride while I sit back and enjoy myself. Locked room mysteries are designed to make the reader engage and try and figure it out for themselves. I actually have made an effort (and had some partial successes, including with this book), but I need the rest of the ride to be entertaining. Most of the locked room mysteries I've read really put all the work into the clever murder and it becomes a slog for me to read. This one was particularly guilty of that. I just didn't connect with the context. It was supposed to be London but there was minimal atmosphere or character. There were multiple investigating characters, though I guess one detective. I figured out one of the major puzzles, but in order to actually put it all together, I would have had to write down a timetable.
Ah just read that Carr was American, who did live in England. That explains the lack of atmosphere. It's an ersatz British mystery. It was the holidays and we had lots of lovely family activities, and I had quite a lot of work around moving my mother into assisted living, but a book this thin should not take me 2 weeks to read. I thought it was me, but I cranked through two great pulp crime books right after this one (I'm behind on my reviews), so I think that is it for me with the locked room mystery sub-genre.
[Apologies, kind of a negative way to start the year. I was in a bit of a reading rut and after this one have gone on to pick books that are fun to read, so picking up a bit of steam for 2026.]
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