The Buried Life

I was excited to read Carrie Patel's The Buried Life, but I found it lackluster. It has a lot of promise in that it is a detective novel set in a gaslamp city, and underground city, to boot. However, Patel provides very little worldbuilding--so many missed opportunities for lavish description lost.

The plot of the story is good, in that even though I saw the twist coming, it did not happen in the way I thought it would. The problem with the plot is more about writing style. She explains so matter of factly that action scenes lack oomph. I feel as if that there's a lot at stake for some of these characters but the way she presents them and their risk diminishes the reader's buy-in.

Yet, having said all of that, I like the characters, and when the book ended I want to read the next one to see what happens to them. The book does not end with a cliffhanger, just a promise that the characters are going to all live changed lives based on the events of the first book. I find this type of ending, honest and admirable. I just hope that Patel's description skills improve in the next book