Murder in the South of France
A Kindle first-of-series freebie.
I found this readable, but wasn't greatly impressed. A great many earth-shattering events were happening to the main characters, but I never felt that their emotional responses quite rang true. In the case of Maggie Newberry, the heroine, both her words and her actions quite often seemed a bit "off" to me. Now I will freely admit that a large part of my problem with Maggie was her sudden infatuation (and over-ready forgiveness) of the man who looks like becoming her permanent sidekick and romantic interest in the series, Leo. Leo could not be more despicable in my books, and though his physical attractiveness is insisted upon, I could not for the life of me get past either his bossiness (he is constantly telling Maggie what to do) or his major lying about his background and motives. And yet, there he is at the end of book, apparently ready to carry on with Maggie through whatever other crime adventures present themselves in the sequels to this book. My aversion to Leo is distinctly related to my aversion to the overbearing love object in conventional romances, so I'm willing to concede that Leo may not be so much of a stumbling block to readers who like that sort of thing.
Three stars because there were only minor writing/editing errors, not enough to take me out of the story, and the plot, although sensationalistic and, as I said, not always wholly convincing, was rolled out with reasonable skill.
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