Book Review: Secrets by Mary A Russell

Title: Secrets (Miranda and Lee #2)

Author: Mary A Russell

Genre: Mystery and Thrillers

Lee is fired from his job. Miranda calls him to help her out in solving an old murder case that Lee’s late wife was interested in. The murder was that of Lee’s wife’s uncle. As the duo dig into the details of the murder, they kick some hornet’s nests. Will they be able to solve the murder before it’s too late?

Lee is portrayed as a selfish guy with a I-don’t-care-I-don’t-want-to-know kinda guy. His work takes priority over his wife and one fine day, when she’s no more, he repents. At work, he doesn’t want to learn how to use a computer. He works in a publishing house and writes everything instead of typing it. When Sally, his assistant is given his job and he’s fired, he again repents. He has the hots for his wife’s bestie – Miranda. Miranda calls him over to her place to discuss about the investigation that they both are about to begin but he can’t keep his eyes off her! This isn’t something that I would like to see in a main character. And he doesn’t seem to take no for an answer. He tries hard to get in bed with Miranda and she rejects him every single time. And yet, he is jealous when one of her male friends visits her.

Miranda was another main character in the book who not was very likable either. She’s an ex-FBI agent, first working as a field agent and then as a researcher but nothing much about how she researched things for the investigation wasn’t mentioned in detail. And she seemed to give mixed signals to Lee about her feelings. Or at least, it looked so, but it wasn’t.

The duo(Miranda and Lee) get calls from a lot of people, anonymous or otherwise, and everybody has some information to give about the murder. The duo even meet a stranger at the café who warns them. They believe every ‘information’ that comes their way. They don’t research to see if the information is right or wrong. This, again, isn’t how I expected it to be. I felt that more work was needed on Miranda and Lee finding out if the information that they have collected so far was true or not.

The dialogues – conversations between the characters – seemed dull and monotonous. In fact, in some places, it was confusing. Like, in one scene, Miranda talks about the snow and the next sentence is about the investigation. No connection between the two.

The ending seemed abrupt. The duo seem to find more and more information, meet people who are related to the case and then… The story ends! I felt that some things were missing or left out. Like, the duo have this feeling that they are being watched. Who was spying on them? – not mentioned in the end. Their house was burglarized, nothing about it was mentioned either. Of course, the reader can conclude from the identity of the perpetrator that the spying and burglar was his elaborate plan to divert them from investigating but I wish it was explained rather than the reader assuming things.

Finally, the letters mentioned in the story – there were only references made to Lillian’s letters. The letters are all at the end, i.e.; after the story ends. I wish they were included in the story as and when they were mentioned.

Overall, I was a tad disappointed. I think that is pretty clear from all the points that I have mentioned above. The concept was pretty good but this was not my kinda story. I love to read a good mystery but this book somehow disappointed me.

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Thank you, NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC. This is my honest and unbiased opinion.