Four stars from London

A new review for Yankee Swat, this one on Amazon UK, by Starry (London):

Myrica Blue is very adept at getting over the suffocating, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of small town politics and administration. The heroine, Tory, struggles with all the who-knows-who and who's-related-to-who (not to mention the who's-sleeping-with-who), and it's very clear how much of an outsider she is. I liked her feelings of shock, for example, that most people in this little East Coast town knew more about boyfriend Nick and his family than she does, just because he's a native and fixed there, part of the townscape and history, and she's an incomer. In this small, insular community that's almost impossible for an outsider to penetrate, Tory must try and solve a crime that is not only present and now, but reaches back for years. Deaths that were explained then come to wear a much more macabre face in the light of events now.

Tory's care in how she presents herself to the small town characters she is pitted against - being professional, detached, separate, outside it all - bleeds into how she presents herself to the reader, as if she's hiding away a lot of herself and not allowing the reader in. While this is clever in making the mystery itself more intense and interesting, it does make the reader work hard to get to know Tory.

This is a story with an unexpected twist, and full of lovely little characterisations and vignettes. A very good first novel.

Thank you for the thoughtful review.