Author: Sara Blaedel
Book Name: The Midnight Witness
Series: Louise Rick
Order: #1
Genre: Suspense/Crime Drama
Overall SPA: 2 Stars
Blurb: A young woman is found strangled in a park, and a male journalist has been killed in the backyard of the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.
Detective Louise Rick is put on the case of the young girl, but very soon becomes entangled in solving the other homicide too when it turns out her best friend, journalist Camilla Lind, knew the murdered man. Louise tries to keep her friend from getting too involved, but Camilla’s never been one to miss out on an interesting story. And this time, Camilla may have gone too far…
Main SPA Evaluation Areas:
Characters: 2/5 Stars
Believability: 2/5 Stars
Personal Opinion: 2/5 Stars
I didn’t go into specifics above because they are so much a part of the whole, they needed to just be addressed here.
I’m not certain if the major barrier for me here was the cultural differences in how other countries’ police forces operate or something entirely different, but I just could not get on board with this and the way any of the police officer characters were presented. I don’t think a single one came across as anything other than an amateurish, bumbling idiot. So many different officers with their hands in investigative pies and yet they don’t really know what those other officers or investigators are doing or what they’ve found out?! There was no clear process of procedure of things that would automatically, routinely happen in every investigation. The whole police side of this book just felt clumsy at all levels. It is kind of terrifying to think this is the way actual police departments may work in other countries.
The two major characters, Louise and Camilla, were kind of horrible. Louise’s character came across as completely flat. I never got any kind of sense of her personality other than she is rather cold and unemotional. Except we are told she broke down, so I guess that means she has emotional depth? Camilla. What do I say about Camilla? Um… she is that character in every scary movie that everyone watching is screaming at the screen, “DON’T GO IN THERE!” knowing they are actually going to be that stupid. Oh, and she is an emotional basket case, about as unstable as 100 year old dynamite.
Outside of being kind of blindsided by the lack of what I have come to expect in a typical police/crime drama (things like process, procedure, basic intellect and deduction rather than snap judgements and assumptions), I was bored. Almost exactly nothing of note happens in probably 80% of this book. The majority of that only happens in the last 10%. The plot was just really uninteresting. Probably because you spend most of it wondering where the actual, experienced police are.
Bored is never a good thing! Nice, honest review.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is always frustrating when you have certain expectations of a book and it just doesn’t end up matching or even coming close to those expectations.
LikeLiked by 1 person