Amy Reads Books

Chasing the Case by Joan Livingston is about Isabel Long, a former journalist turned amateur investigator, as she investigates the disappearance of Adela Collins, a woman who vanished without a trace 28 years earlier. I found the premise intriguing; I love a good cold case about a missing person. However, I didn’t like this book.

The main character is a grandma so she’s likely in her 60s but she’s often doing and saying things that make me forget and think she’s in her 20s and then I’m reminded again she’s older and I found it very disconcerting. She had a way of talking to the reader that I didn’t like, it kept pulling me out of the story. Sometimes the sentence structure was awkward and I had to re-read it multiple times to get its meaning.

I figured out the crime immediately and there were no surprises along the way. Yes, the main character knew how to investigate but it seemed she got all her clues by sheer luck. She also knew what happened at the end without any clues, just dumb luck.

I give it a generous 2.5/5 stars because I know writing is hard and there were bits about the book I did like, such as the witty banter between characters.