Check-Out Time

Up to this book I've been enjoying the Pennyfoot Hotel series. I like the seaside Georgian setting, and I like the recurring characters (especially the maid Gertie). This book still has the characters and that is good, but the story was definitely lacking in plot and in suspense. It is almost simplistic in its style, and I did not enjoy that. I love the cozy genre, but I love a multi-layered story that keeps me coming back in order that I can learn what is happening to the characters that I have come to love. This book did not do it for me this time, but I will try some more, and hope for better.

I found Check-out Time by Kate Kingsbury to be remarkably well played out this time around. There was enough to keep my imagination spinning trying to guess for myself who did it.
I was quite pleased with the final outcome of the mystery and how everything came together so very nicely surrounding the mystery. There were, however, a couple of loose ends not pertaining to the mystery that I would have liked more of an explanation for.
Baxter leaves us with a bit of a cliff hanger with just one spoken sentence at the end. I wonder what he's up to.

From bad to worse. Kingsbury is just pretty bad at her craft. This time the only saving grace is that the mystery has more meat then in the three previous outings. Yet there are three elements that ruin the book

First can you see an Edwardian Officer leaving the service to run a Pub with a Fuzzy-Wuzzy native wife back in the south of England on the Dover Road? This is how bad it gets. But it is not some minor character to us. It is the beloved son of the heroine. Here we have a modern woman forcing her views on a prior time. If such would happen, it would be so few and far between that it would be extraordinary. Why much up the book with this.

Then we have voodoo. The sticking pins in doll type. That is Haitian or New Orleans voodoo which show more the author attributes to West Africa. This took me right out of the book. The author just thought to mention something that an educated person would not give credence too. Forcing me to confirm my knowledge and stop my reading. And further find fault with this historical, for it has no bearing on history.

Last, the lower class servant employed at this very uppercrust resort has a POV with this "leaning over him with her tits brushing his shoulder..." while I am sure that lower class men might think of a 1908 bosom as tits, a serving girl in a very respectable establishment. It was beyond vulgar. Again the author took me right out of the story.

So can I recommend this to anyone. Save your money and stay away from this author. show less