Book: Abduction of Mary Rose by Joan Hall Hovey

This is a fairly good mystery, with decent suspense in places.  Hovey's work here verges on very good, but never quite makes it.  I see evidence that she can (maybe will, maybe already is) be a great writer, as the bones of the story are wonderful.

The opening hooked me right in, and the first third of the book kept the momentum going.  As the story progressed, though, the suspense lessened, the dastardly villain was revealed (about halfway through) and the instances of proofreading errors increased greatly.  It became more of a chore to keep going, and just about the time the mistakes made me consider quitting, the book reached its climax.  The 3/4 in place of dashes, starting with the first page and continuing through the entirety of the book, were especially annoying.

I did keep reading to the end, because I had come to care a bit about the main character, Mary Rose's daughter, Naomi.  As far as characterization goes, Naomi was definitely most fleshed out and easiest to understand.  Secondary characters were less consistently well done and in some cases, not well at all for their importance to the continuity.

This book was not a dog, but wasn't great, either.  Solid three stars for keeping me interested in what happened to Naomi long enough to ignore the other stuff.

This was a Kindle edition that I downloaded while it was free.