2 out of 4 stars
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Lemoncella Cocktail written by Rene Natan is a crime novel that includes weapons trafficking. The story started off with an unemployed bartender named Patrick, who happened to walk by the Ausable River and succeed to rescue a young girl called Samantha. It then revealed that Samantha was mistaken by her sister, Amelia—who had witnessed an illegal transaction carried out by her boyfriend, Oscar who leaded the weapons trade.
Patrick then brought Samantha back to her family and met the McLeods—Jessica, the grandmother and Justin, the youngest brother. Patrick initially decided to stay off the family, particularly when it involved murder. He however, later, changed his mind as the McLeods seemed to receive comfort in his companion, plus he was able to provide help to the task force investigating the case of Oscar Calander. It was quite relieve to witness the emotional evolution of Patrick who had been traumatized by his childhood incident from the beginning to the end of the story.
I enjoyed reading the novel through the constant changing third person perspective. I got to know the inner thoughts of each character, and thus, enhanced the joy of discovering what was next. The author did not fail to convince me that, she had done her part the best to analyze the plotting. The writing was clean and understandable that you are able to catch up. It was best for readers who seek for concise and explicit plot development, not much of thinking and conjecturing need to be carried out.
However, it was a pity that the story was poorly edited. There were noticeable grammatical and typographical errors at almost every page. For instance, ‘this was I need’ should be ‘this was what I need’ and the ‘I’ from ‘I thought I it was from…’ should be erased. These mistakes are probably the reason I couldn’t enjoy the story to the fullest.
I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. Overall it was a well-written crime novel, yet the editorial errors were holding me back from rating the story higher. On top of that, while I anticipated knowing the feeling of the related characters from each post-event, my wish was not granted. I got stirred by what had happened, but not satisfied by how they were summed up. It was like a poem missing the last sentence. The romance part, although not the centre of the story, seemed to be skimming over. There wasn’t much mentioned, and there was no emotional evolution involved.
I would recommend this story to those who are first experimenting crime novel because of the easily understandable plot and simple characters. It wouldn’t be pleasant for those who like thrill, anticipation, and definitely not someone who’s strict on grammar.
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Lemoncella Cocktail
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