[These comments are taken from a mailing list discussion and as such contain spoilers…]

[on the characters]

I don’t remember any of the characters other than Michael appearing before and I didn’t find him as interesting as in previous books. He seems rather nondescript in this one, I expected his history background to come into use at some point and I want to know how Eli and Tzilla are getting on with their baby but apart from a brief mention of Michael’s son there’s very little continuity of characters from the last book.

I almost wonder why Gur wrote this as a series. The recurring character of Michael doesn’t add very much to the books.

I think Avigail is an interesting person, the policewoman who is working undercover as a nurse, but I hold out no great hope of seeing her in the next book. Nearly everyone on the kibbutz seems unlikeable, Moish and Dave are the only two I can recall thinking were ok, but on the whole they are quite an interesting bunch to read about.

I think it’s hard, without knowing anything about a kibbutz, to know if the relationships between the kibbutz members are realistic but they feel quite realistic to me and they certainly seem more real than Michael’s relationships with his colleagues.

[on the plot]

The big weakness of the plot was that it was full of devices that had been used in the first two books. I’ve no problem with them in theory and the closed community theme was fine but it was just a bit predictable that the killer would be protecting the kibbutz from change and preserving an ideal. So I think the plotting was plausible just not very innovative from the point of view of the series.

I think if I was reading these books further apart and not thinking so much about them I’d like the structure more, as it is, apart from the diverse settings they are becoming rather samey.

I’d like to have heard more about the side issues like the face cream fraud. Gur puts tons of stories into her books but doesn’t develop them into full sub plots, it’s like having too much to read and not enough to read at the same time. I feel the only real thread is the murder and everything else is just bits of cotton lying around being too short to sew anything with.

The conclusion was satisfactory enough but I found the journey a bit empty, lots of scenery and not that much substance.

more to come…