A slightly twisted, crime-mystery book that was entertaining to listen to
For the rest of the month, in between ARCs, I’m going to be listening to some older sapphic books that I can borrow for free with my Audible membership and when I saw that there was an Anne Laughlin book, I could not pass it up. Anne Laughlin’s older books like A Date to Die and Veritas, are known for being entertaining mysteries, with lots of twists, where you can’t figure out who the killer is until almost the book is over, and I’m happy to say that The Acquittal fit that description perfectly!
I had an idea of who I thought the killer was, but then changed my mind thinking no, too easy, so I picked someone else I was so sure about. In the end, I was close but still wrong. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I’ve read so many mysteries in the first half of my life that I have a really good knack for picking out the killer, so I have to give Laughlin some major points for pulling one over me:)
While Laughlin’s books usually have some romance, I don’t know if I would say that this book had one. Our main character is coming out of the hospital after finding out she is bipolar and can no longer be on the police force, so she is now a private investigator. I can’t say for sure if this was a good bipolar rep, but it seemed very realistic of someone having to adjust to new medication, side effects and no longer having the same high highs and low lows. Because our main character is trying to get to a good place mentally and physically, she must learn how that feels when she is with another woman too, so she is not really in the best place for a grand sapphic romance, but maybe something very slow.
While there was a lot of good here, especially in the second half of the book, I was not crazy about the blackmail plot. I won’t go into too much, but I found it a little hard to believe and I just didn’t care for it. The sex scenes that happened when the blackmail part was not resolved, also made me uncomfortable. The murder mystery, and really everything else was so much better and just more entertaining that I wish the other part was a bit different but whatever, I still enjoyed my listen.
It’s been a little while and my memory has a lot of books bouncing around it, but I think I would still recommend A Date to Die, as my favorite Laughlin book to read, but if you have an Audible membership this would definitely be an entertaining free mystery borrow. (as of January 2023). 3.50 Stars.
Length: 7 hours and 55 minutes
