9 Days
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TL;DR: A tangled, fast-paced mystery centered around eccentric characters. For fans who tend more toward hard-boiled detectives.
An eccentric wealthy family, a false murder confession, and a strong protagonist, all in a story set in Portland. It’s a great set-up for a mystery, and Jule Selbo executes it well in 9 Days.
Following a serious injury, Dee Rommel has left the Portland Police and opted to work for her godfather’s private investigator business. They’re hired in an unorthodox way - by the precocious young son of the woman who has confessed to the murder of their hired help. This angle adds its own intrigue to the plot as the relationship with a child as a client is navigated. As Dee investigates the murder she enters the numerous worlds of Portland, Maine - from the tony west end to the people who frequent the social services provided by Preble Street. She encounters what can only be described as a cast of characters, among them an astrologer, martial artists, and petty criminals. To add to the pressure of the investigation, she is under a tight deadline imposed by her client - Dee only has nine days to solve the murder.
Fast-moving and with characters that draw you in, 9 Days is a book that will keep you turning pages. You want Dee to succeed and you want to know who the heck she’s going to meet next. The setting of Portland lends itself well to the spectrum of characters that make up the book, though the descriptors of the city sometimes go a bit too far, and are a bit too dry. One example that stood out starkly was a couple of sentences about a snowy sidewalk and the way Dee navigated it. I’ll let you read it and see if you flag it for yourself.
An enjoyable aspect of this book was the lack of straightforward information you get as a reader. Many of the characters speak in vague terms, operating in their own worlds, dropping just crumbs for Dee (and the reader) to interpret and follow.
Overall, an entertaining book that may be especially enjoyed by fans of the more hard-boiled end of the mystery/detective section.