Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Chose this as my monthly FirstRead. I love a good mystery, although I'll admit this was my first foray into the more "traditional" style. The plot involves a band of jazz musicians who assist Scotland Yard in investigating the rumored reappearance of a war deserter as a member of a gentleman's club they frequently play at. Said deserter also disappeared with a bag of diamonds, so there's a lot on the line. First understand that this is apparently a spin off of another series. This isn't mentioned anywhere in the blurb, so when some characters from the original series show up, I was utterly confused. Yes, they aren't a major part of the story but it's still annoying - if I'd had known there was a connection, I'd have tried the other books first It's set in 1920's England so if like me you're new to this kind of thing, have your dictionary on standby. There's so much slang here that it can be tricky to really know exactly what's happening. The main characters have a witty banter going on which was pretty funny for the first few chapters. 300 pages later I was over it. There's a heck of a lot of dialogue in this book already, and expanding it by having the characters keep doing this whole back and forth pretending to misunderstand each other thing gets old real quick. That seems to be the tone though - no one really takes anything seriously. Even when the inevitable murder of one of the band takes place, no one really seems to care - there's no grieving, no anger or vengeance. Keep in mind, they've supposedly been together for years and are very close. They just carry on like nothing happened, bringing in a replacement, who doesn't even get a name until the book is almost over. Weird. This just wasn't for me. It's less of a mystery and more a snapshot into the life of a London 1920's jazz band. If you enjoy reading about that time, you'll probably enjoy this. For an interesting whodunnit style mystery, there's better books out there