The Other Half is the first book in a police procedural series by Charlotte Vassell. Released 21st Nov 2023 by Knopf Doubleday on their Vintage Anchor imprint, it's 368 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperbakc due out in Aug 2024 from the same publisher.It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
There are moments of levity and humor, but for the most part, the book is quite full of highly unpleasant characters upon whom readers will actually *wish* harm. The writing is well wrought and the plotting is well engineered, but perhaps a little less awfulness in the characters would have rendered the whole read a more pleasant experience overall.
There's also a large dose of social satire and poking fun at the upper classes which has more spite and snark than actual humor. There are numerous books which do the upper classes behaving badly trope with humor and delicacy (Crazy Rich Asians, Malibu Rising, and Big Little Lies for example), this, sadly, isn't one of them.
Another book in the series released April 2nd 2024 and has considerably higher ratings overall. It's probably worth slogging through the first book in order to give the second book a fair try; as said, it's generally well written and moderately well plotted.
Three stars. Worth a look for readers who enjoy hating most of the characters and don't mind some serious -stupidity- in action from the same.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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