I think every book I read this weekend was a three star read. Nothing Earth shaking at all. I think I am disappointed with this one because the prior George & Molly Palmer-Jones books were really good. This book’s reasoning behind the murder just didn’t make sense because Cleeves in my opinion did something I don’t like with mystery writers, just tossed out information on something you would not get to until they tell you. It just came out of nowhere for me. Also, for me, the ending was so abrupt and I didn’t get any satisfaction out of case well done and solved. I know these are earlier in Cleeves career, but this one read as a rough draft and we were missing some meat in it.
“Another Man’s Poison” follows George and Molly as they take off for a conference that George is attending. Since the location puts them near Molly’s aunt Ursula, they plan on visiting with her. Ursula we find though believes that the local landowner is laying out poison (which is illegal) and she found a dead buzzard and her two cats as well. She’s determined to have the man investigated and charged. When George and Molly arrive though, Ursula is dead, and they have a ton of suspects who may have done it.
I usually love George and Molly, but George got on my nerves in this one. He didn’t seem to want her part of the investigation. And Molly of course finds out more information that leads to a bigger mystery and I wish that in the end they would have discussed that friction between them.
There’s a cast of thousands in this one, but I think the side plots could have been done away with. It just felt like way too much layering after a while.
The ending as I said was very abrupt and the major villain came out of nowhere. The side plots also to my mind were not solved to a great degree of satisfaction. I just honestly felt disgruntled by that point.
This book filled the bingo square of “Green” this cover has the color green in fonts and also shows the grass and hills where the plot takes place. This is in row 4, spot 5.