Under the Harrow

*3.5 stars - A bit stilted and a bit disjointed, but I was turning the pages quickly and wanted to see where Berry would take me. Good enough that I am interested in reading her new work, Northern Spy.

Edgar Award 2017 for Best 1st Novel - Takes place on a College campus, Good characters and twists & turns! I enjoyed it!

This one wasn't the next “Gone Girl” either.

Why I would pick up a book that claims to be the next “Gone Girl,” which I read, but thought was just okay, is beyond me. Mind you, I didn't specifically choose “Under the Harrow” for that reason; it seemed like a nice break from some slightly heavier stuff I brought home from the library. It was only after I got the book home that I noticed the comparison.

Indeed, it is lighter, not only in heft, but also in content. There is nothing inherently good or bad about the length of a book as a sole characteristic, but I applaud the short length in this case because I wasn't stuck with Nora for more than a few hundred pages.

We are supposed to think we have an unreliable narrator. What we have instead is a boring narrator, who goes about stalking people and getting in the way of police investigations, and not in that endearing way we often see on BBC mysteries. The twist, such as it is, wasn't interesting and I wished that some other culprit had been at the heart of this meandering, choppily written book. On to the next!