Yup I had very mixed views. To be fair the opening historical notes on rechecking are not as long as I remember. But they felt long, and very off-putting, and told me loads of details I just didn't need to know. It really put me off the book. Then there were aspects later that I wasn't keen on. But as I said I would read the sequels. But yup, not as good as I hoped.

Incidentally I was watching a Cymera book festival chat last night with 3 authors talking on the "There's been a murder" panel. T.L. Huchu was one of them, talking about his "The Mystery of Dunvegan Castle". I can watch this via my paid digital weekend ticket for Cymera. I have a lot of talks to watch on catchup!