Death by Darjeeling

Death by Darjeeling 

  - Laura Childs

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I have always loved murder mysteries, I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot mysteries, but the contemporary ones don't work for me because they almost invariably bank upon a psychopath. That is how I landed up with "cozy mystery" genre a year ago, and have explored quite a few series by now. Sad to say, they are entertaining and charming, but fall short on the mystery and crime-solving aspect.

 
This book is a good example of the books that don't make the cut for me. For one, this has too many similarities to the Hannah Swenson series I have just been reading. Cookie/coffee shop is replaced by tea shop, rescued pet cat by rescued pet dog, a love interest or two ... But the main problems are the story-telling and the story itself. The descriptions of the place, the process of tea brewing and the aspects of tea business are good. But the descriptions of characters are no great shakes- every so often a new character is introduced, and one paragraph describing their background/thoughts complete the "character development" ... it is abrupt, and becomes tedious, feels like an info dump. The mystery was underwhelming - I frankly guessed the murderer from the beginning, at the crime scene itself. The rest of the suspects just end up being random red herrings - the reasons for suspecting most of them are flimsy, and their so-called suspicious actions or thoughts are never clarified.

I will give another one or two in the series to see if they are any better, but wont hold my breath.