Watching the Detectives by Julie Mulhern

Rating: WARTY!

Taking its title, perhaps, from Elvis Costello's 1977 single, this book launches right in with a problematic blurb: "Inspired Amateur sleuth" - that's me out right there. No sleuths, please. "Ellison Russell is searching high and low for a murderer." That's why the murderer is hiding out at middle height, where Ellison, for some reason, seems particularly squeamish about searching. "Her country club society is filled with gossips, scoundrels, and unsavory gentlemen" so why does she inhabit it? This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, and especially not when another amateur meddler like this is screwing-up the crime scenes and more than likely withholding crucial evidence from the actual police. Yawn.

The Deep End by Julie Mulhern

Rating: WARTY!

For reasons which escape me, this author seems obsessed with women swimming into stiffs in the water. Make of that what you will. "When Ellison's morning swim brings her face-to-face with the dead body of her husband's mistress, it's a stroke of bad luck indeed - especially when she becomes a suspect in the woman's murder! Can she clear her name and find the killer before the case goes belly-up?" And she must prove her innocence rather than have the prosecutors prove her guilty because...? It's opposite day? She's a person of the first water? Her name inexplicably, is Ellison? Her husband's mistress's name was Chlorine Fresh? Yawn.

The Deep End by Julie Mulhern

Rating: WARTY!

This story was first person, a voice I typically detest, but even so I decided to give it a try. I ran into a major problem immediately and gave up on it at once, not wanting to tempt fate and read on in the faint hope it would improve. The story began with the main character strolling out to the backyard pool for a morning swim, and somehow she fails to notice a dead body in the water until she dives in and swims right into it? Was she blind? Did she keep her eyes closed until she dived into the water? It was, quite simply, bad writing and if I start out by reading that in the first few paragraphs I'm sure-as-hell not going to waste my time reading on under the delusion that it will get better. Certainly not in first person I'm not! I can't commend this one, nor do I believe I shall sample anything more by this writer.