I have been sitting on this book for a few days, not literally but metaphorically. I was caught by the extra commas in the first few paragraphs and that held me back, much concentration was required in order to get past them and into the book. Even then I struggled. I think the author shows promise, by the time I was through the book I had rethought whether I could actually write anything about it several times, the plot wasn’t entirely clear which I thought good but there were no loose ends everything was tidied up completely and thoroughly.

Anyway, here’s the synopsis.

Who is killing little old ladies at a quaint seaside hotel – and why?  Enigmatic grandma Mrs Ada Harris investigates, but watch out nana, not everyone is who they claim to be.

***

Mrs Ada Harris and Mrs Florence Brown have been friends for over 65 years.  For the majority of that time, Ada has been keeping a secret that only the ‘Clean 4U Agency’ – which somewhat curiously, is not listed in any phone book, knows about. Ada is advised to take a holiday.  She arrives at The Sea Bridge Hotel only to find that the recent deaths of solicitor Alistair Walsh and spinster Mirabelle Davenport, remain unsolved. Using well-practised techniques and a few ‘tricks’ of her own, Ada questions the main players, but can she get to the truth?

I’m not quite sure whether Ada Harris is a secret spy or a secret detective. With the information in the synopsis she should be a spy but in this book she does things a spy doesn’t do and then why does she need to be so secretive? It’s a combination of a spy book and a detective book and I’m not sure it works for me.

Siketa does have some writing skills, I’d suggest she take more lessons in how to get the information across to the reader without huge dumps of information. In the first half of the book she had Ada Harris thinking a lot and we got the benefit of her thoughts but it felt like too much at once. At least I was able to finish this book, it reminded me of another book I couldn’t finish partly due to the large amounts of descriptive text, Double Take was better in that respect, more sophisticated.

I could have stopped at any time and chosen not to review it but there was something there keeping me going. Did she really die of knitting needles to the heart? And if not, how? I’ve actually forgotten the answer to that so I’m not going to reveal any spoilers. Who was really who and why…? The one thing I should have asked myself is why the odd behaviour? I’m kicking myself about that one but at least I was right about the pranks.

I’ve been told her other books are better so it’d be interesting to see if they were right. It’s possible this isn’t the genre for her and that other genres suit her better.

You can buy this book here, ebooks can be shipped anywhere in the world (funnily enough) but paperbacks onto to the UK. Yes, they gave me a copy to read and review.