"The Busy Body" by Kemper Donovan

 

"The Busy Body" by Kemper Donovan is the first in a series revolving around a nameless narrator who finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery.

The narrator is a ghostwriter who sees herself as Lady Cyrano. She has no close friends and is cut off from her family by her choice, and she likes it that way. She doesn't like to associate with others and keeps to herself. When asked to write the memoir of Dorothy Gibson, a former Senator who lost the Presidential Elections, she gladly agrees. Many admire Dorothy’s work ethic and steel-trap mind, and so does the narrator. The plot thickens when a neighbor they met once is found dead in her bathtub. When suspicion of foul play arises, both ladies team up to solve the mystery.

Overall, it was a well-put-together mystery that kept me guessing until the end. I liked the homage to Agatha Christie (one of my favorite authors), the setting, and the eloquent writing. I also liked the dynamics between the characters, the dialogues, and the puns. The romance was also a nice touch.

The book kept me engaged in most parts. However, it started very slow with over-detailed descriptions of surroundings and a stream-of-consciousness  that further slowed down the pace. Luckily, the pace increased after the finding of the body.

I have to say that the overuse of name-dropping - of real and fictional characters - and pop culture references threw me off. Also, the repeated references to the failed campaign and badmouthing the candidate that won were a bit too much.

I also didn't like the lack of backstory on the nameless narrator which leaves us in the dark about her history. Maybe it will be revealed in the next book. While I liked the ending, Hercule Poirot style, I didn't like the choice the narrator made in the end. It makes her seem too inflexible and set in her ways, not a characteristic I like in my heroines.

The ending seems to imply that the next book will be with the ghostwriter only, which is odd. Here she was just the sidekick to the senator, and the senator was the one who cracked the mystery. Overall, it is a decent start to the series but could do better with some tightening of the plot and another round of editing (there were format issues). I rate the book 3.5 out of 5 stars and recommend it to less fussy readers who enjoy whodunits with a Golden Age atmosphere.

* Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for the opportunity to read this arc.  All opinions are my own.

* For more info about the book: "The Busy Body" by Kemper Donovan