Book 1 in the Girl is Murder series
AUTHOR: Kathryn Miller Haines
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Historical fiction, mystery, drama
PREMISE: In the 1940s Iris's life is upheaved after her mother's suicide. Her father, a detective has forbidden her to help with his business but when one of his cases involves one of the boys at her new school, she can't help but get involved.
MY RATING: Here's my conflict with this book: Quality wise, this book is high up there. The writing is good. The author manages to paint a really vivid and accurate picture of life during WWII and even doesn't shy away from some of the uglier aspects of life then (gasp! a author talking about racism! A main character who isn't Christian!). As a historical fiction novel, this gets a HUGE thumbs up from me.
However mystery wise...it's kind of a let down. While it is a honest portrayal, I can imagine quite a few readers reading what happened to Tommy and go "that's it? That's all I've been reading for?" Plus, Iris can really try your patience at times. I think she's a well fleshed out character, but she's also a rather bratty fleshed out character. The rest of the characters however were all interesting in their own rights and believeable though. I was especially interested in Iris's father.
However, I sort of feel maybe this is a lead in for more juicer stuff. I feel we haven't been given the whole story about Iris's mother and perhaps the mystery's in the future will be more exciting. This one was mostly about Iris proving to her father she can do the business. So I will be keeping an eye out for the second book out this year in the hopes that it takes the good stuff about this book and expands on it and makes the series more entertaining.
WHO SHOULD READ: Historical fiction fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of five for a series that has potential but not quite there yet.
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