The Barn Identity

[cornerofmadness]

The Barn Identity by Diane Kelly

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This is partially my bad. When I was sent an arc from the publisher, I didn't check it out first. This is book 8 in a series. While mysteries are stand alone book 8 is pretty deep in to pick up a series new. That said I'm not sure I would have liked this any better had I read others. I didn't like anyone in this book and honestly the author lost me before the murder even happens and it never got me back

Let me start with what I did like: That Whitney Whitaker is a house flipper. It makes a great break from the onslaught of bookstore/coffee shop/food service/B&B Owning amateur sleuths that dominate the pages so kudos for that. That's a great hook.

And I loved the idea that this particular flip was attached to a historic Underground Railroad building. fantastic but the execution was not.

So where did it lose me? Almost immediately. Whitney is pregnant (that's fine) but she still needs an income so she goes to look at the titular barn in question along with a freelance journalist. The owner gives the Underground Railroad spiel, the family history and how she's related to both the white farm owners and the enslaved people and Whitney straight up can't figure out how that's possible and asks. I almost DNFed right there. Really? You can't see how that is possible? Being a cozy it gives a gentler reason than the all too often owner raping a slave reason for it.

And rather than space out the Underground Railroad tidbits through the book, Kelly front loads it into the first chapters killing the pacing dead. Some of it is interesting (like the signal quilts which aren't something a lot of people know about) but man this should have been spread out. The whole book is incredibly slow.

But the book wasn't done losing me. The barn's owner isn't going to sell it in spite of that's how Whitney makes money but she decides the history is enough to say yes but the owner doesn't know what she wants the barn to be. She'll leave that up to Whitney and Buck. Blink. What? They think of barn wedding venue and apartments as two options. Uh, those are very different responsibilities. How can the owner not know what she wants to own/run?

Whitney and the journalist part ways and she and Buck go to a local vegetarian place and again almost DNFed here. Buck pitches a fit that there's no meat and the owner/chef/whoever literally brings out a soap box and starts berating him for eating meat, getting human evolution wrong (no, we have omnivore teeth and I have the papers to back that up) and literally humiliating him while extolling the benefits of vegan life. I don't hardly eat meat but if someone did this to me I'd be out of there (and you can imagine the Yelp review)

But it gets worse. Keep in mind no crime has been committed yet but then we get Whitney trying to file off finger callouses because 'her baby wouldn't know her mom was a woman because of her rough fingers.' Pretty sure I broke out in hives at that point and then she goes back to the barn and is waiting on someone so she gets her book and a tarp to go lie down and read in the hay loft, you know the one she said was a giant bird toilet. So our house flipper doesn't know that bird droppings are filled with dangerous pathogens? (is she wearing a mask?) She's going to lie down in a place where she'll be aerosolizing histoplasmosis, salmonella and cryptococciosis all of which could cause birth defects and miscarriages?

Thankfully the crime happens soon after but by then I didn't care. I didn't like Whitney and I didn't really trust she could solve anything. To be fair, the mystery part of it moved along well enough but my interest had been lost. I'm sure there are plenty of people who love Whitney and this series so go look at what they have to say about it. Don't base your choice on me alone.

Thanks though to the publisher for letting me have an arc.



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