Stephanie Jane recenzis The Girl In The Gallery de Alice Castle
Great sense of place
3 steloj
I appreciated being able to return to Beth Haldane's Dulwich in this second volume of the London Murder Mysteries. Alice Castle again vividly evokes the affluent and entitled 'village' with its cliques and fashions. Characters such as Belinda - who must always be at the very centre of everything - are fun to read about although in this story a similarly self-proclaimed arbiter of taste performs a much more cynical function. I like how Castle engineers her stories to show both sides of a coin. The Girl In The Gallery has social media as both a benefit and an evil. The way in which the teenage group that are the story's focus are manipulated reminded me very much of another recent read - H A Leuschel's Manipulated Lives - and it was scary to see again just how vulnerable people can make themselves simply for the sake of fitting with …
I appreciated being able to return to Beth Haldane's Dulwich in this second volume of the London Murder Mysteries. Alice Castle again vividly evokes the affluent and entitled 'village' with its cliques and fashions. Characters such as Belinda - who must always be at the very centre of everything - are fun to read about although in this story a similarly self-proclaimed arbiter of taste performs a much more cynical function. I like how Castle engineers her stories to show both sides of a coin. The Girl In The Gallery has social media as both a benefit and an evil. The way in which the teenage group that are the story's focus are manipulated reminded me very much of another recent read - H A Leuschel's Manipulated Lives - and it was scary to see again just how vulnerable people can make themselves simply for the sake of fitting with the In Crowd.
I didn't feel that the murder plot here was quite as strong as for Death In Dulwich and I would have liked more believable policing from Harry Yorke. His role as Beth's romantic interest is still cute but I did wonder at some of his professional decisions! There were perhaps too many convenient coincidences for my taste, but overall The Girl In The Gallery is an entertaining story with a great sense of place.