His First His Second~ A.D Davies | Review

Title: His First His Second
Author: A D Davies
Genre: Mystery
Length: 396 Pages
Publication: November 2014
My Rating: 3/5 Stars







I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Brief Synopsis

Detective Sergeant Alicia Friend is one of the most highly skilled and respected criminal analysts in the country. Alicia is assigned to work with Donald Murphy on a kidnap-murder of two victims. A third girl has been taken and the two and their team have less than a week to dig up the closely guarded secrets of the high-society family where everything started; otherwise, Katie dies.

Richard, Katie's father, has other plans. Plans that involve a return the dark past he left behind in the United States. He launches his own investigation, utilizing resources and tactics the police would never condone. And all the while he and Alicia are drawn closer together. 

Can they save Katie before it's too late? Will Alicia's actions cause her to let her guard down around the wrong man and at the wrong time?

Review

The mystery in this novel was really interesting and well developed. I had my suspicions as to who was involved with the kidnappings and murders from the beginning and some of those hunches paid off. There were some curve balls thrown my way that made the story more thrilling and enjoyable. I found myself somewhat glued to the page as the novel sped toward it's conclusion. The actual mystery portion of the novel gets top marks from me. 

The novel is told in first person, but uses a swap between several different perspectives. This can be very compelling and informative, particularly in this genre. As a reader we are able to see through Katie (the kidnapped girl's) eyes, giving some insight into the kidnapper without ever really spoiling the whole thing. The differing perspectives got better was the story progressed. In the beginning I found many of them to hinder more than help, but toward the end I was loving them. Most of the characters and perspectives we see are very complex and insightful. I found that the only one I never really enjoyed was that of Alicia. 

As a character I did not find Alicia compelling or very well developed. I would have preferred more time inside Murphy's head. Alicia was interesting, but too childish at times. And I found her ability to be completely rational and intelligent one minute and then silly and clueless the next very off putting. I felt that there were things she should have picked up on, or at least had an inkling of, from the beginning, but she never did. 

I really enjoyed the two murder mystery stories interconnecting and getting confused. Even as a reader it was sometimes difficult to see where one was beginning and the other ending. There was so much interconnectedness. That's one thing I love about mystery novels, they weave so many mysteries together and allow you to search for clues that will keep you on the right track.

Overall I think this novel was a good read, particularly for fans of mystery. I've seen some reviews that say it should be labelled horror because of details involving the murders, but I never found it particularly graphic as far as any of that was concerned. I really liked the mystery; I just think the execution could have been improved somewhat and the characters more thoroughly developed.

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Happy reading, my friends.

Courtney