When Ruby impulsively moves to Boston, she’s glad to get a fully furnished apartment for a decent rate. She does not even mind that the previous inhabitant committed suicide – though those views may change when she realizes that Cordelia is still hanging around, and keenly interested in the murder of a neighbor.
Say ‘an unlikely crime-solving duo’ in application to a cozy mystery, and I will be there in a flash. Also, roommates of all stripes can be tricky, so I was curious how it would be to have the added twist of one of those roommates being deceased.
The relationship between Cordelia and Ruby is definitely the highlight of the book. The two women are quite different in pretty much all ways – their ages, their personalities, their outlooks on life – and the author does a great job in correspondingly making their narrative voices distinct. I really enjoyed seeing the two of them grow closer and figure out ways to communicate better. Seeing Cordelia take back some of the power she never had in her life is also very satisfying.
However, the actual mystery fell a little flat for me. We get such a big clue right at the start of the book that the characters miss that I felt like I spent a lot of time waiting around for them to catch up. Cordelia and Ruby’s investigation is pretty haphazard too, and so things seem to just meander until almost the very end. The mystery itself was never terribly gripping. If it weren’t for the paranormal aspect of the plot, I might have lost interest completely.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.