A Skeleton in the Family

A Skeleton in the Family - Leigh Perry

I couldn't resist that particular "mood" for this review.

 

I admit to going into this book assuming it was probably not going to be terribly good. The writing wasn't terrible and I was willing to suspend belief quite a bit, but it just never clicked with me. 

 

I didn't mind the terrible jokes (and as a heads up, there were quite a few) regarding bones and skeletons and...everything, really, and the main characters were at least interesting, though almost too good to be true. 

 

Perhaps this is part and parcel of the cozy mystery genre (or at least the sub-genre of it that picks terrible pun names for all the books)? The characters managed to get things to work out just right for themselves. No one was in real danger, the sister who was faintly annoying came around, the only other character that was problematic to the least extent was kicked to the curb, but not on camera and not with any kind of emotional impact, and in general it felt like a children's book. Had this been written for middle graders, I might have sucked it down and really liked it, but as an adult novel it felt unsatisfying. 

 

This might just not be my genre, honestly. I was thinking Agatha Christie, and although several of the points raised in the above paragraphs might apply to her, somehow she transcends them. (No terrible puns might help, honestly.)

 

The sheer modernity of the novel was also strange and added to the feel of a middle grade story. Anime conventions and Gravity Falls discussion and Sid reading the Harry Potter books and all of it coming together with the sanitized (in every sense of the word, really) murder mystery just felt strangely childish, but not in a good way. 

 

I didn't really dislike this novel, but I couldn't quite manage to really like it. I'm glad I read it, because this sort of pun-title cozy mystery genre has been intriguing to me for quite a bit, but I think this might be my last foray into it, because if talking skeletons and decent writing did not manage to hook me, I don't think this is going to be my kind of thing.