Happy Monday bookish people! Today I am bringing you my book review for The Bingo Hall Detectives by Jonathan Whitelaw.
In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little bit about each one. I will do my best to not give any spoilers in this review.
The Bingo Hall Detectives Plot:
This novel follows Jason, a journalist who has been out of work since the local paper office shut down, and his Mother In Law as they get tangled up in solving what they believe was a murder.
I loved the cosy crime feeling of this novel, and the subverted partnership of Jason and his mother in law being the protagonists. Jason is not sure for most of the book that it was a murder but he goes along with his mother in law anyway and I thought this created a wonderful dynamic for the story.
Personally I thought that the plot itself was just a bit lacking. The first half of the book was great but the second half and the reveal and everything was very rushed and needed to be set up a lot better throughout the whole of the novel.
The Bingo Hall Detectives Characters:
I have already spoken about this a little bit in the plot section but I liked the dynamic between the two protagonists but, the same as my feelings with the plot, I thought the characters could have done with a little more development on their own, when they were together it is fine but on their own I think they needed a bit more.
The Bingo Hall Detectives Writing and Dialogue:
I thought the writing style was okay, as I said it was a cosy crime novel and the writing style fit this well but it wasn’t a writing style that will stick in my brain.
The Bingo Hall Detectives Overall:
Blurb/Synopsis:
Eyes down to find a killer who’s playing to win…
An irresistible slice of murder and mystery – there’s a killer on the loose in the Lake District, and the members of the Penrith Bingo Club have decided they’re the ones to catch the culprit…
Jason Brazel is an out of work journalist who lives in Penrith with his family and mother-in-law, Amita. She knows everyone and everything that’s going on in this corner of the Lakes.
So when it’s discovered that Madeline Forbisher, one of Amita’s fellow regulars at the bingo club has died, found by the postman outside her crumbling country home close to Ullswater Lake, she senses immediately this is no accident. The trouble is, no one else seems to take her suspicions seriously.
That is, until she enlists the help of her friends at the Penrith Bingo Club. Dismissed by many as eccentric, over the hill or out of touch, it turns out that it’s unlucky for some that these amateur sleuths are on the case…
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