4 out of 4 stars
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A thrilling murder mystery with a witty but crazy protagonist, Concealment by Rose Edmunds has all the ingredients needed to make it a great read. Starting off with no indication of the coming adrenaline rush, the book nonetheless had me hooked from the very first chapter, what with the subtle humour mixed in with just the right amount of madness in the protagonist’s narration at the very beginning.
Tax consultant and successful professional Amy Robinson is anything but the put-together image she portrays to the world. Suffering from hallucinations of her younger self and extreme paranoia, she bumbles through life nonetheless in a manner that no one would notice her illness. So when a colleague is murdered and she takes it upon herself to investigate, she faces obstacles every step of her way, the most prominent being that no one believes her!
A thrilling whodunit seen through the eyes of a mentally disturbed protagonist, the book had me hooked from the start. The author manages to make the reader connect with Amy while simultaneously making her seem crazy even though the entire book is in her own narration. I never could tell if something she experienced was real or a hallucination, and the suspense kept me turning pages until the end of the book.
What I loved most about the book was the author’s style and the tone kept up throughout the narrative. Although it was a thriller, it wasn’t dark by any means, and the protagonist’s thought process kept me amused throughout the story. I also loved how Edmunds developed Amy’s character, building her up into an actual human being one can connect to despite her mental instability. The side characters were also given just enough depth so that they didn’t seem shallow, but in this book, Amy was the main character and it showed.
The grammar and editing were impeccable, and I’m happy to say that I found no mistakes in the book, although it did contain a lot of tax jargon which we could definitely have done without. Simplicity is the best sophistication, and many words used in the book demand a better vocabulary than what most people possess, making the book unnecessarily complicated. Another thing that annoyed me was the use of “egg-zackly” in place of “exactly” everywhere in the book, which seemed deliberate rather than an editing mistake but grated at my nerves.
Overall, I loved the book and recommend it to those who love a good mystery with a touch of humour. It does not contain any graphic sexual themes, so even younger audiences would enjoy it. For all this, I give the book 4 out of 4 stars.
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Concealment
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