I persisted through this book for one reason: I NEEDED to know who the killer was. That’s it. That’s the only reason. As a mystery, it is compelling, twisty and enjoyable. As a romance, it made me want to throw my e-reader against a wall.
So many of the secondary characters are total assholes. Truly. Even our heroine is a selfish dickwad. Across the characters, sometimes that asshole-ness is because they’re just assholes. For example, Harriet’s mother is a selfish, snobby, uncaring woman and treats her daughter abominably. And our heroine, Harriet? When Harriet presents the idea of her article to Nic, she positions it as a way to help Nic’s sister’s case. That’s why Nic says yes to working with Harriet. Harriet doesn’t tell him that she’s possibly going to get her old job back off the back of this article. Which I guess, everyone needs to benefit, but at least be upfront about it.
Meanwhile, the whole time Nic’s sister’s case is presented as really super urgent and action must be taken immediately to help her, but days will go by with no action taken by Harriet in the investigation for the article. Instead, Harriet just mopes. Nic’s sister is also annoying: she’s aggressive, short-tempered and can’t be relied on to be professional in professional settings. Yes, some of it is the kind of nonsense that young, angsty people get up to before their frontal cortex is fully developed, but it drove me scatty.
I sometimes forget that I was young and dumb once. I didn’t communicate clearly or make the brave choice. Perhaps because my twenties are now distant history, I find myself getting frustrated by poor communication between Harriet and Nic. Things are so fraught and they never tell each other the full truth. It’s all assumptions and miscommunication which I find tiresome.
There is one particular instance that I just couldn’t wrap my head around, but it happens really late in the book, so I’ve hidden it behind spoiler tags.
When Harriet and her entourage confront the bad guy and a gun goes off, it is a completely innocent, lovely secondary character that gets shot in the leg. A secondary character that Harriet has been horrible to because she’s jealous of what she assumes is going on between Nic and this person. Why on earth does she need to be shot??
Up to this point, Harriet has been MEGA deceptive in her motives and actions. She does so many shitty things, it’s hard to think of her as a romantic lead. So it won’t be shocking to you that I didn’t buy the HEA. It just made Nic look like a chump for taking her back. Did I mention it’s a second chance romance?
The mystery worked for me because I was genuinely invested in the puzzle of who did it and why, even if the people solving that puzzle were awful. But the romance did not work for me because I didn’t much like the leads as people so I didn’t care about their HEA, such as it is.
If you’re going to read this book, I strongly recommend focusing only on the mystery and just skimming the romance parts. I’m so irritated by it, I could spit because the mystery is interesting (not groundbreaking or anything, but interesting to read nonetheless) and with more likeable leads being kinder, the romance could have been amazing.
– Lara
Only Murders in the Building gets a rom-com twist in a laugh-out-loud mystery-romance following one woman who will have to pair up with an unlikely ally to solve a murder in their quaint New Jersey beach town, perfect for fans of Jesse Q. Sutanto, Elle Cosimano, and Katherine Center.
Murder has a way of bringing people together…
Harriet Baker thought that when she left Logan Island, she was leaving for good. But after getting fired from her dream magazine job, she finds herself stuck back in the sleepy New Jersey beach town living with her eccentric mother and desperate to escape.
And her ticket out might be…murder?
When Harriet’s extravagant birthday party ends with a dead body, all fingers point to Sara Allbright, the troublesome sister of none other than Nic, Harriet’s short-lived fling from years ago that she’s been eager to forget. And the feeling is entirely mutual. But murder makes for a good story, and when Harriet is told that she can get her old job back if she writes an article uncovering what really happened the night of her party, she readily agrees. To write her piece, Harriet will need Nic’s full cooperation, and if Nic wants to clear his sister’s name, he’ll need Harriet’s investigative skills. But working together? That’s less than ideal.
As the two team up to find the real killer, they’ll uncover the dark underbelly of their seemingly perfect hometown, uncover long buried feelings, and maybe, just maybe, realize that they might work well together after all.
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