Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun

I admit to being a late and slow adopter of Finlay Donovan. It just all sounded a little hokey to me, maybe even a little too Hallmark-channel for me. I don’t have the best track record with mysteries like these geared toward women. But one day a couple of months ago I came across the first paragraph from the first book (Finlay Donovan is Killing It), and I found myself shaking with laughter because I’ve been that mom. So I decided to read the first two books and then read this one for release day.

And, as much as I love admitting I fell in love with the first two books of this series, I actually felt this installment fell short of the shining mark of those two previous books. I mean, it’s still a Finlay Donovan book, and it still enthralled me, but I felt that in this book there were just far too many hens in the hen house and they were are too willing to just bend over backwards to accommodate Finlay, Vero, and her kids. Maybe you know what I mean, maybe you don’t. The amount of looking the other way and sloppiness in the plotting of this book just so Finn and Vero could get around wherever they needed to be whenever they needed to be there really stretched my capacity to suspend disbelief. I live about a mile from a HighWay Patrol training facility, and that place is darn near like Fort Knox for all the gates and checkpoints. There are cameras everywhere.

Two serious bones I have to pick with this book are there are just too many characters, both old and new, and I found myself having issues keeping track of them all. The other bone I have to pick is that both Finn and Vero, by the third book, should know by now how to take forensic countermeasures and yet they continue to just possibly leave DNA, fingerprints, tire tracks, and all other matters of possible evidence of themselves at the scenes of different crimes without seeming to care.

I miss Finlay keeping it a little more simple. I miss her and Vero just trying to take care of the kids, keeping Steven in the dark while trying to keep him complacent, and Finn trying to overcome her writer’s block by working through the wreckage of her life. I just hope we get to see more of that.

I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All views and opinions expressed are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: General Fiction/Amateur Sleuths/Women’s Fiction/Comedy/Mystery/Suspense/Part of a Series/Crime Fiction