Dogboy vs. Catfish

Dogboy v Catfish by Luke Gracias is billed as a mystery-thriller. It was a quick, somewhat fun read, but lacking depth for my tastes.

When a woman knows the date she’ll file for divorce on her wedding day, there can be no good intentions. When the husband goes missing just before the planned divorce date, you wonder if there was foul-play or if he somehow got wise to her schemes.

This novel has a detached, 3rd person narration, as we are following the police investigators and others in the story more than our main characters. We are mostly told about them and about what they have done and speculations on their actions. This is somewhat limiting, and makes most of the characters come across as one-dimensional.

Additionally, I probably would not have read it if I had realized it centered around counterfeit designer goods. After reading Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen last year, I’ve had my fill on the topic. Others might find this more interesting than I do, though!

I did enjoy the analogy of The Endless Knot. Overall, the plot is interesting, and the ending was good, but the middle part was lacking depth. Due to the shallow characters, there wasn’t much of an emotional investment in the story, so it didn’t really matter to me how it ended or who “won.”

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for an advance copy in exchange for sharing my opinions. All opinions in this review are my own.

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