Edinburgh Midnight by Carole Lawrence
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
The Gist
I loved Lawrence’s two previous books in the Ian Hamilton Mysteries Series, Edinburgh Twilight and Edinburgh Dusk, and I eagerly awaited the publication of Edinburgh Midnight.
Usually, I can’t put the book until I have finished the last page, but with Edinburgh Midnight I struggled. I struggled a lot.
The Details
As the third in the series, I thought that at this point the reader might find out a little more about the protagonist.
Instead, it felt like the author decided to take Hamilton a step back; to make him more obscure than in the first two books in the series.
It was all fun and games getting to know Hamilton as the slightly brooding, complex character, but at this point the reader has committed to the series and the character and deserves a little more depth.
Unfortunately, we are still stuck in the stock character stage. We got the main character, who appears to promise us a good and interesting backstory. Plus, the possibility of more character depths and personality traits as the series progresses.
There are plenty of good secondary characters that have the potential to take this series from the monotonous, rather cookie-cutter sort of who-dunnit story to something that would put the Hamilton Mysteries above the rest.
Sadly, the reader is presented with stock characters that won’t go beyond “the brother”, who tries to change his ways. “The detective”, who is brooding and we should take his moods as they come, and whatever other cardboard figures posing as characters would bring this story from point A to point B.
The writing, generally speaking, is still very good. It’s just that it stopped focusing on the story and got stuck explaining Scottish culture in 1800’s. It takes the reader out of the story by way of saying “this is what this word actually means, yet it doesn’t really matter to the story as a whole”.
I wasn’t impressed. The whole thing began to test my patience. I just wanted a good murder mystery to read during the holidays.
Plus, I wasn’t sure what was going on with the plot. All of a sudden there are three murders to investigate, yet none get very much attention. I mean, Hamilton is very busy brooding.
The Verdict
Overall, after reading Edinburgh Midnight I’m the one brooding. The spark and excitement I felt reading the other two in this series are gone. I feel let down and disappointed.
I don’t think I would recommend this one.
