Whispers Book

Completely befuddled by how the romantic sub-plot was handled in ths trilogy. Amanda gets together with a tabloid-like talk show presenter. She's very distrustful at first but has fallen completely in lust. Amanda is indepedent and doesn't like people encroaching on her territory unabashed so she is rightfully shocked when her lover gets super wifey and domestic since day 1. They fake-break up, then open relationship, and Amanda drowns in depressive pining for two novels, moaning about how good she had it with her lover because they had a quick-and-easy thing with no melodrama attached. Like???? Your lover started to redecorate literally the morning after you two first had sex????? She was *this* close from going down her knee and ask for your hand in marriage? Did we read the same first novel?

I truly can't stand all the random facts that are mentioned but dropped. Is economy of writing not a thing anymore? I thought stuffing a story with whatever passes your mind was acceptable only in fanfiction. Even if it's just for the sake of social criticism, like mentioning that the French have resumed nuclear testing in the South Pacific, you need to tie this with the plot. Make it part of a motive, make it that the criminal invested something in what you mentioned before, make it part of a corruption or spy plot, make it part of the characterization of the protagonist. Like in Book 1, Amanda mentioned that she doesn't buy French products because of the nuclear testing. Okay good, that means she is conscentious, keeps herself updated on sociopolitical events, does her own little every day activism, love it! But don't bring it back if you don't do anything else with this information. Don't give me irrelevant information at the beginning of in a mystery novel, when I'm trying to absorb as much as I can because who knows when it's gonna be useful to unravel the puzzle. This is mystery fiction, everything needs to be tightly knit. Either it pertains to plot or to characterization.

I admit I liked the cheekiness of not revealing whether a camp colleague of Amanda is gay or not. I was waiting for that but it was merely bait.

I loved how the author had the courage to deal with a rape case where the perpetrator is a lesbian, it's not easy to look your own community in the face and point out the rotten apples. Especially if your community is a discriminated minority and has suffered enough. But I was let down by the fact that this sub-plot doesn't have an ending. At least give us a newspaper slip with the result of the trial, what the hell.

This is the only novel in the trilogy where there are two investigative cases that are both carried out during the narration. Although one of them is incomplete, it's better than the joke played on the reader in Book 1 and 2.

Once again, kudos to the author for how she handled queerness, alcoholism, suicide, rape and rape culture, homophobia and sexism.