I’ll tell you the exact moment I lost interest in Three Graves Full. Half-way through the book, the police officer in charge of the case is at home and his 14-year-old daughter is preparing to go out. He then gets lost in a reverie about how alike she is to her mum.

My inner censor put her hand up and refused to read anymore. I convinced her to carry on past a few more skimmed pages where the plot became even more convoluted and there I lost any sense of interest I once had. What does this have to do with our main character Jason and the man he killed?

Why are new characters being introduced half-way through?

I already know about Jason, his wife, her father, the guy who died (although I had him mixed up with another guy for the longest time) , the other two bodies, the brother of the husband of one of the bodies , the husband, the police officer, his partner, the partner’s dog who is also given some time to express himself, and the girlfriend of one of the dead people.

I couldn’t take anymore. My brain just couldn’t handle it. There wasn’t even any question about the story that I needed answering, it was all there already. So why would I keep reading?

The writing is nice, Jamie Mason has a very likeable style but in this first novel she gets too carried away with her love of writing rather than focus on her character. She chose breadth rather than depth and if she isn’t interested enough to find out more abou them then why would I be?

There are some brief forays into deep philosophy which just don’t work with the shallowness of this plot-led book which loses momentum once the plot is done.

The story wasn’t strong enough to hold up narration such as the following:

There’s the what and the when of a deed; there’s where it happened and how it was done. But it’s at the why that the liar’s margin begins.

What? This arty construction may sound nice but the emptiness of the work doesn’t back it up with any substance.

Mason is an extremely likeable writer but this story just didn’t work for me. I’m looking forward to trying again with her next book, whenever that may be.