W. M. Akers

I try to express only my most honest opinion in a spoiler-free way. Unfortunately, there is still always a risk of slight spoilers despite my best efforts. If you feel something in my review is a spoiler please let me know. Thank you.

I did not really like this book. I know an obvious statement considering my rating, but the most accurate I could think of. It had promise and the plot of the story could have been good if it wasn't told in one of the most boring ways possible. This is a book filled with suspense, horror, action, and mystery, but I found it utterly boring. I won't be continuing the series.… (more)

I give Westside points for imagination and atmosphere, but the book is overlong and its heroine's hairsbreadth escapes and continued survival against all odds test even my suspension of disbelief. The setting is New York City of 1921, a city now separated by a wall running down Broadway for the length of Manhattan. In the Westside, people disappear in alarming numbers and 24th Street is the dividing line between the parts of the city run by two chieftains--one male, one female, who as we'll discover, have a long history. By the end of the book, the author has succeeded in tying pretty much every character to one another, but it just becomes more and more implausible. The heroine, a detective who only works on "tiny mysteries", in this case a missing glove, is likable and her first person narration is engaging, though perhaps a bit overwrought, especially in the audio version I listened to. The story is sensational enough; the narrator would have done better to read it a little less expressively. As I said at the beginning, there is a lot of imagination here, and the depictions of both sides of the city, the prospering, "normal" East Side and the mysterious West Side, are very well done. There are lots of memorable characters along the way, and some of them we wish we could get to know a bit better. (But there's a sequel, so I guess readers who can put up with more of this will get to do so.) Toward the end, the author introduces the biggest twist of all, which I won't spoil for you, but I just don't think it works. It all becomes just too ridiculous by the time of the last gunfire and explosions. I can't really recommend it.… (more)