Kathryn's Reviews > The Two Deaths of Ruth Lyle

I liked this book and the characters enough to seek out the second one in the series. The main character was sympathetic and the interaction was credible. I liked some of the plot twists and, as I read it over about four hours, I’d have to say it’s a page-turner.

I agree with some other reviews that the ending was a bit too convenient. I think one of the things most of us love about a good detective story is that you get to figure it out as you read so that when the denouement comes you have that really satisfying “Oh of course!” moment and maybe I missed the signs but I think it more likely that they were absent so the ending and the big reveal all felt a bit unsatisfactory.

Annoyingly, there were a couple of inconsistencies that a copy editor should have picked up on. One was that in one chapter, it seems important to mention that a character is photographed with grandchildren. Two chapters on, the same character, who is in his sixties, goes home to see his children doing their homework and later on the children are mentioned again but there is no further mention of grand children. I know none of that is impossible, but it felt careless rather than deliberate. Another central character is referred to at one point as having been a “middle-aged woman” when something occurred when in reality she would have been about 21! It’s not a big deal; I find things like that jarring but not completely off-putting.Hopefully this author’s other books are a bit more detail-focused.