Point Last Seen by Christina Dodd
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Thank you to the publisher, HQN, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of Point Last Seen in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The Gist
I loved Dodd’s Wrong Alibi and was super excited to read Point Last Seen. I should note here that I have not read any of her other works, so I’m not as familiar with the scope of her writing and breadth of genres she covers.
The Details
Let’s start with the good. I loved the setting: small town on the Pacific coast; kind of isolated from everything else. I could totally get into the mood.
Now to the bad: Point Last Seen has some less than believable moments. Unfortunately, these unbelievable moments are the basis for the story.
I have said before that perhaps I’m a little short on patience lately. So when a story starts out by eluding repeatedly to something that happened to the protagonist before the beginning of said story without elaborating on it, I get annoyed.
This is the case with the protagonist. He is tortured, isolated himself and a bit suicidal.
Moving on to the damsel in distress: I got nothing but confusion about her.
I mean. If I had just vomited up half the ocean and didn’t have a heartbeat for god knows how long, I wouldn’t be thinking about jumping anyone’s bones. But, hey, personal preferences.
I think she is supposed to come across as a hardworking scientist, educated, confident and perhaps sexy.
Instead, it kind of screamed “sex craved”, “horn dog”, “in heat”. You get the picture.
I had no idea Point Last Seen would be so heavy on the romance, which adds a whole other flavour to this mystery/crime story.
The Verdict
Overall, Point Last Seen just doesn’t do it for me.
About the Author
Christina Dodd New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd writes “edge-of-the-seat suspense” (Iris Johansen) with “brilliantly etched characters, polished writing, and unexpected flashes of sharp humor that are pure Dodd” (ALA Booklist). Her fifty-eight books have been called “scary, sexy, and smartly written” by Booklist and, much to her mother’s delight, Dodd was once a clue in the Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle.
