Bookreview: Simon Said

Author: Sarah Shaber
Genre: Mystery
Published: 1997
Personal rating: 4/5
Yearly count: 46

When an archaeologist unearths a decaying body while excavating Kenan College's distinguished Bloodsworth House, the college's youngest full-time professor, Simon Shaw, becomes involved in the case because he is the leading authority on the house's history.

I love a mystery like this with a body so old. You can research without getting in the way of the police, for they don’t really investigate a murder so old. This makes for a credible storyline with an amateur sleuth.

The point of view switched quite a lot, certainly in the first few chapters, which isn’t my favorite thing in the world. Especially in cozy mysteries I like a tighter point of view. In this case, it took until the fourth chapter before I really started connecting with Simon, the main character, because his voice wasn’t coming through before that because of the pov switches. But once I did connect to Simon, I really got into the book.

The only thing I really have to complain about is that the editing on this Kindle edition could be better. Line breaks are sometimes missing where they should be, dialogue often doesn’t start on a new line, and sometimes where there should be numbers there is merely blank space. This sloppy editing job was annoying, and threw me out of the story when there was something missing from the text.

But, despite the abysmal editing, I really liked this book and looks forward to reading the rest of the series.