Kept reminding me of the TV show ‘Shameless’.

I know this was set in Philly … but I couldn’t help letting my mind wandering to the scenes from Shameless, which is set in Chicago. The drugs, crime and a sister trying to keep it together on the side. Now I don’t mean to say the author copied anything – Long Bright River was a story of it’s own. It was very interesting.

Longer than I expected, but the story kept moving.

I’m not sure I liked all the characters, but that was okay. I felt some unease and soon the unease lifted as I got to know the characters more while reading. I enjoyed that the main character wasn’t some sort of super star that could figure out any case given by some miraculous leap of faith.

I HATED the way the author formatted the speaking portion of the book. I got confused more than once when I didn’t know if the character was thinking or speaking and I swear there is an error or two somewhere along the line. I get it’s a style preference .. but I’m a traditionalist … gimme some quotes! Ha.

The relationship between the two sisters wasn’t the best … once there was the big ‘ah-ha’ moment, the moments previously described didn’t make sense. It felt like holes are still there that haven’t been filled or else there was a huge build up for nothing.

Anyways, I don’t want to be too negative. Overall, good book. When I started writing this review I had the stars set to 5 and as I started thinking more about what I wanted to say, I dropped to 4. I don’t hate I read it though, so please pick this up if you feel like a street copy, detective, straight city mystery adventure.