Sunday 18 January 2015

Book review: Murder is a Family Affair, by Terri Main



Even the blurb for this book has the horrible 'lay' used intransitively. This appears to be Main's calling card, as I have seen it in almost everything of hers that I have read. This makes me cringe so badly that I find myself reviewing her more harshly because of it, and it's a shame, because these Dark Side of the Moon mysteries, of which the instant work is the third, are really very good.

As well as misused apostrophes, 'loan' used as a verb, inappropriate punctuation and utterly ridiculous mistakes of word choice ("in his morning coat and wainscot"), not to mention the writer's apparent failure to grasp the use of tense at all, there is also factual sloppiness in this book. Of particular note is the frequent reference to Bram Stoker's character Van Helsing, who is misspelt throughout as 'Van Helsig'.

This book is in a much worse state in this respect than the first two of this series. It seems as though it may have been rushed into publication in a great hurry. I find this extremely disappointing, especially coming from an author of Christian devotional literature; it seemed to me that to do one's work as well as possible, when it is being done for money, is a necessary aspect of 'Thou Shalt Not Steal'.

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