Multiple Motives (A Kate Huntington Mystery) by Kassandra Lamb

Title: Multiple Motives
Author: Kassandra Lamb
Available from: Amazon

I really need to think through my rating system and try and make it more objective because I’m currently going on my gut. Pretty much, a book I can’t put down gets a 5 and everything else is subjective.

I wanted to give this book a rating of 3, because I felt kind of lukewarm about it. After thinking about it a bit, I decided 4 was more appropriate because it’s competently written and well told – I just didn’t find the characters all that compelling and I thought the story was a bit transparent. Red herrings are more pink than red and even though I hadn’t figured out who the killer is by the time it was revealed, I didn’t gasp and think I never saw THAT one coming!

Maybe therapists are ultra touchy-feely – or I’m ultra prickly (can you tell I’m not a huggy type of person??) – but I wouldn’t be comfortable with a male friend calling me “dear heart” (nor have any of them ever tried!), or any other term of endearment for that matter, and I wasn’t comfortable with it in this story. I felt it was contrived as a way to reinforce the detective’s belief that Kate and Rob were lovers trying to get rid of their respective spouses so they could be together.

All in all, as I read the story I felt I was just skimming on the surface. The characters are interesting, but not that interesting. The story is okay, but not a page-turner. In its favor, it’s well written – and these days of self-publishing, that’s something I appreciate!

For $2.99, however, the price is right and maybe someone else will like it more than I did.