This was a nice, well-written story. The characters were likable but had enough flaws to keep the plot moving. The romantic chemistry between Daisy and Lars was solid. I was concerned that the characters all being in the STEM field would lead to some plot points that would be hard to follow for someone, like myself, who is not in those fields, but I think the author did a great job of making plot points accessible to readers from any background, but some of the jokes, such as different T-Shirt designs sometimes did require more STEM or overall “nerd” context to understand.

I liked how the author found ways to include Daisy’s Chinese heritage in different aspects of the story (some idioms used and explained, her mother’s cooking, the expectations of filial duty, etc) but I was kind of disappointed that Lars’ Norwegian heritage wasn’t similarly explored or really even remarked on. In fact, Lars is described as “icy” or “anti-social” but in some ways this felt a little like a Nordic vs American personality clash or just a simple case of an introvert being judged by extrovert standards. For example, Daisy doesn’t feel like Lars has many close friends but seems to collaborate professionally and carpools to a laser tag event and seems cordial in these settings. Lars was an enthusiastic lover and focused on Daisy’s comfort, helps her with her dog, lets her borrow things that aren’t returned or reimbursed for, has a good relationship with his cousin and show more his mentor’s family, and so on. It’s hard to reconcile that with the supposedly icy personality.

The only aspect of Daisy & Lars’ relationship that I didn’t care for was them wanting privacy away from her visiting mother, so they chose to be intimate at the office instead of Lars’ apartment. Going into Lars’ apartment was treated like there was a big secret or reveal coming, but that didn’t materialize and so the decision just seemed kind of odd. Especially given Daisy was still getting established, making friends, and trying to make good impressions with prestigious researchers in her field.

I think the story was also weakened by having her ex be pretty terrible in every way. He absolutely does terrible things to get the plot going, but as the story progresses, he just doesn’t have many redeeming qualities at all and it becomes less credible that Daisy ever thought building a life with him was a good idea.

Overall the formatting was good, I liked the story being in Daisy’s POV and only switching to Lars for the epilogue. My one suggestion for improvement would be the text message exchanges with Daisy’s friends in California. I’m not sure how flexible the publisher might be with that, but some improved spacing or even images to better show who is sending each text would be helpful. show less

This was a very well written mystery. The twists and turns were interesting, there were several characters who plausibly felt like they could have been the guilty party along the way, and the plot moved at a good pace. I am always impressed when an author sets their story in the past and they don’t accidentally use information or technology that weren’t available in that era. The author clearly put a tremendous amount of effort into historical accuracy.

This was my first book by this author, but it didn’t feel like I was missing any important context from previous books. For me personally, I would have preferred this story to focus on Watson and Badger as a duo, but in this case, they were very much a trio with Ellsie. Maybe one of the other stories in this series would have fit me better in that regard.

With that said, there are a couple possible triggers in this story other readers may want to be aware of (I will try to keep this vague enough to avoid spoilers). First, there is a suggestion that animals may have been neglected, but the text doesn’t outright confirm the welfare of those animals. I guess you can interpret that whichever way you prefer, but if you hoped for a definitively positive outcome on that, it’s not spelled out. Also, this mystery does involve more than one victim, but only one is really given any significant attention.

Rather than starting at the beginning of this series, I just jumped straight in on this story. I’m not sure if it’s because I started on book 4 of the series or because the story is so short, but I felt like there were quite a lot of characters introduced quickly and it was a little difficult to keep all the names straight.

I did appreciate the author's way of giving a quick insight about the character with a one or two line statement. That really helped the characters feel varied and colorful even with brief descriptions and a limited word count overall. For example, one character is described as “Always wears nice coats,” and “Acts like he’s doing us a favor by showing up”, which is a very succinct way of giving a visual description followed immediately by a personality insight.

The one thing that was a little jarring to me was how straightforward the characters were. They were quick to apologize and readily share information even with people they’ve just met. It's possible that could be a true regional characteristic, but that’s not typically how people react, especially if there’s a crime or even cozy mystery afoot. If the author decided to write longer stories, I think just by playing into people’s natural reluctance to share their thoughts, they could flesh out the conversations and make them more complex.

Overall a nice, short, low-stakes mystery.