The first Winston Wong mystery by JJ Chow was a random selection for me. Seniors Sleuth was offered as a free hoopla pick for Feb. and I decided to give it a go. It was a quirky book and didn't capture my full attention right away. As such, I am not totally sure I am hooked on the series yet.
My favorite parts of the story are the positive and central focus Chow places on elderly characters. She gives them important and key roles in the story and in doing so highlights how often older people are just taken for granted or placed aside. I wonder if this attention has anything to do with her heritage, since many Asian families live multi-generational and have respect for their elders.
The other feature that struck a chord with me was the setting. I attended high school in the San Jose area so I am familiar with many of the locations referenced in the book. I always enjoy reading books where I am familiar with aspects of my real life, whether the setting or a topic covered.
While I wasn't overly enraptured with this book I do plan to give the series another go to see if I can become more engaged with the characters.
Seniors Sleuth by J.J. Chow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this cozy mystery and appreciated the fact the author used seniors as supporting characters. It was wonderful that she made them credible and strong vs doddering incompetent people. I appreciated the Asian cultural influences to the story that she’s familiar with from her heritage. The mystery was a clever one that was constructed well. The main reason I didn’t give it a higher rating was a sense of rushing/ time warp. Things were supposedly evolving at a too rapid of pace. Even the epilogue felt like the follow up was much lengthier in time than the stated one week. I think Ms Chow has great potential to have a good series just needs to work on the time aspect and develop a bit more depth in her characters. She’d scratch at something deeper but then didn’t expand.
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Challenge Prompts
The Challenge Prompts I will use this for are:
- Goodreads and Reading by the Numbers #ReadingByNumbers2023 Book # 40
- Library Love #LibraryLoveChallenge Book # 33
- Stacking the Series #stackingseries2023 1
- Series Catchup #seriescatchup2023 -1
- Virtual Mount TBR #VirtualMountTBR2023 Book #35
- Back List Reader #Backlistreader Book #30
- Cruisin thru Cozies Free choice #13
- Cloak & Dagger #CloakDaggerChal Book #31
- Craving for Cozies Book #27
- Medical Examiner Challenge 1 Toe Tags
- Pick your Poison #38 A book with an author whose name (first or last) is only four letters
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