Review: The Skeleton Road

The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid

My rating: 1 of 5 stars




I received a copy of The Skeleton Road from the publisher in return for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book, I tried to stick with it in the hopes that I would get into the flow of the story as I progressed. I'm now 55% and I'm having to admit defeat and place this one on the did not finish pile. I just kept finding myself tuning out and skipping parts because I was starting to get really bored with it.

The characters in this story, just didn't work for me. I can honestly say there wasn't one that I could relate to or even like, in fact most of them irritated me. Karen for example, I like strong female characters in stories but being a strong female does not mean being a total bitch to almost every guy you meet. It does not mean treating them like they are thick or inferior. If anything it means rising above it all and setting an example, proving them wrong despite their attitudes. I get that it's not easy being a female in her position but cmon, making yourself exactly like the stereotypical male you dislike to start with and treating your male colleagues and others in the way you dislike them treating females, total hypocrite.

The male characters are all written like they are stupid and have no idea what they are doing. Again this is no way to balance the story to make the female characters look stronger. You don't need to make every male character sound like an idiot in order to have a strong female. I find it kind of insulting that the author wants me to believe than in order for a female to stand out she has to be surrounded by bunch of idiots.

The Scottish slang annoyed the hell out of me. For example "taking the mince" really? Talkin' mince, yes. Takin' the mickey, yes. Or the more commonly used here in Scotland "Takin' the pish" yes. Taking the mince, never heard a Scot say that ever.

This is supposed to be a psychological thriller, but it reads more like crime fiction. It's too slow for it to even come close to a thriller and as for being a psychological thriller, the only thing it did to my psyche, was put it to sleep.

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