Reading progress update: I've read 39 out of 373 pages.

All the Hidden Truths: one shocking crime: three women need answers: Winner of the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Debut of the Year! - Claire Askew

Four chapters into the book and the following already annoy me:

 

1. The back cover blurb gives away a major plot point. It's something that is not mentioned in the chapter that introduces the three main characters. Grrrrrr.

 

2. Then on page one we have this:

"She forced herself to press the bell and shuffle out of her seat, down the aisle and then the stairs of the swaying bus. She alighted outside the National Library of Scotland, whose double doors were mobbed by a gang of school kids. Moira felt herself tense. She'd come to sit in peace and do some studying for her OU degree, but the thought of being holed up in a dark, oppressive reading room on a day like this had already put a sullen feeling in her chest. A school-trip group clattering about the place practically guaranteed that she'd get nothing done."

Erm, I presume she's referring to the general reading room, which indeed does not have a lot natural daylight in the general reading room (tho other reading rooms have floor to ceiling windows). But one of the effects of the location of the general reading room is that it is isolated from the areas where school kids could possibly clatter about. There is no way the character could have heard them unless the kids had been let loose in the reading room itself. And that is highly unlikely in that particular place. You know, the library that is famous for patrons shushing even the librarians. 

 

3. The descriptions of everything seem overdone. 

 

4. I find it difficult to keep the timeline straight: one character wanders about thinking about the past and her son. We learn that she's wearing jeans that she wore when pregnant with her son. Then we learn her son is 20. I'm not saying it's impossible to wear jeans for 20 years...but is it likely?

 

5. We encounter a 20 year-old construction worker who has been in an accident - fell of from a scaffold and impaled his shoulder in a bar. 

 

Yet, all of the characters describe him or refer to him as a "boy".

 

6. We have a DI who hears about the accident and prays that she's not called to that particular case. What case?! Why?!