Book Review: The Doll's House

Reading M. J. Arlidge's The Doll's House has almost made me yearn for Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. You know, pure mysteries sans any distractions and diversions. Is it too much to ask for in a mystery novel? After all, they are supposed to be good at one thing: being mysterious. By which I mean, gripping, intriguing and puzzling enough to make the reader feverishly turn the pages at warp speed. Don't you think, as a reader, it's time for authors to embrace and apply this aspect to their characters too? I, for one, am so bored of reading about cops and their tangled, messy personal lives. They often run a risk of not only breaking the flow and shifting the focus away from the main story at hand, but, if not effectively employed, can also completely derail one's interest in getting to the bottom of it all. Thus when Helen Grace (the cop in question) sets out to solve the case of a serial kidnapper-cum-killer, what starts as an interesting game of cat and mouse, gets sidetracked with so many irrelevant personal and parallel narratives, you begin to wonder if the mystery will ever gets it due. A little exciting and very formulaic, that about sums up The Doll's House.