I borrowed Fold and Die from my local Public Library. The cover advertised "back by popular demand," referring to the character, Jordan Lacey and the JL series. It appears, however, that author Stella Whitelaw, after seven other Lacey mysteries, tossed this one out to satisfy her agent or publisher.
The sloppy writing of the first fifteen pages almost convinced me to return the volume to my book bag, but I persisted. The writing improved. The mystery was quite transparent and Lacey never saw the clues. But then she rarely used any investigative skills in this story. I kept reading, hoping my assumptions about the crime and the culprits would be wrong. For me, Jordan Lacy, who is touted as zany came off more as ditzy. A couple of red herring elements were so out of context with the eventual story line and plans of the perps, they seemed more like word-count fill, and for one, Lacey's response was ambivalent.
With a setting of a cruise ship, there were points of interesting information. The tour-guide descriptions of the ship's stop were well written, but added to the ditzy nature of the protagonist—she put her PI job and worries on hold to sightsee.
Overall, I was disenchanted with this. Nice if you want to learn a little bit about cruise ships and Norwegian art and history; but other than that, not so nice.
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