Gave Up On: "Ticket to Ride" by Janet Neel

Gave Up On: Ticket to Ride by Janet Neel, 2005, 0312349238.

In 1995 or 1996 I read a really good review of a Janet Neel mystery novel in the Times Literary Supplement. I read the novel and enjoyed it but had not yet read another of her novels when I checked this one out. And I still have not read one.

I gave up on this novel after only a few pages. The story starts out differently than other mysteries or thrillers because it does not begin with the crime or conspiracy. Instead, a couple old biddies, one of them an English MP, are chatting and going to meet the MP's kids for lunch.

I also get really annoyed with UK novels that use only single quotation marks for dialogue. If a story is good I'll stick with that format ,but this story did not grab me and I have other good books waiting. The storyline is promising: eight bodies of illegal immigrants have washed up on an Norfolk beach. A brother of one of the victims visits a lawyer about it and she gets involved in the investigation. Trouble ensues. Blah, Blah, Blah.