Review - "Actual Stop"

Actual Stop, Agent O'Connor #1
by Kara A. McLeod
rating:☆
published: 14th June 2016
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

Galley provided by publisher

DNF at 52%

I was honestly really excited for this one. It (ostensibly, at least) combines two of my favourite things: mystery stories and lesbians (which there aren't enough of). Needless to say, I was disappointed.

First of all, it was going relatively OK up until the point where I DNF-ed it. It was maybe a little boring - all there was going on was the presidential detail, when I was kind of expecting something more like FBI/Scott & Bailey but with lesbians (so OK maybe more than a little). The writing was good, but the characters were only vaguely interesting to me and that probably contributed to my boredom. I was ready for it to pick up, in other words.

And then, it's revealed that a Muslim character (who was earlier introduced in connection with a counterfeit case, which, OK, I was slightly amenable to letting slide) is connected to terrorists. At which point, I gave up. The thought that something like this might happen had actually gone through my mind when we first were introduced to him, but I was holding out for him being innocent. Obviously, it didn't turn out like that. And I don't care if in the end he isn't directly part of this terrorist plot or whatever (I don't know where the plot was going because I gave up before it could get there), the fact that the author's gone 'oh, Muslim character -> terrorists' is more than enough of a reason for me to quit.

Another (brief) issue I had was how much of an overreaction Lucia seemed to have, over the simple issue of Ryan looking at Allison. Like, can you not just talk it out? Did it have to get so blown out of proportion? (I'm 90% sure there was the implication that when you're with someone you can't so much as look at someone who you might be attracted to let alone actually be attracted to them.) Like, OK, it was a plot device to have Ryan single so she can get together with Allison, but it could have been done in an entirely friendly way, with Lucia and Ryan staying friends. Right?

Anyway, I was prepared to overlook that before the terrorism thing came up and I quit. Which is a shame because I really was looking forward to this book.