Book review: Tightrope by Amanda Quick

Tightrope by Amanda Quick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the first book I’ve read by Amanda Quick and I enjoyed it. As many others, I liked the cover, but I got the paperback and the cover is a little different). I was intrigued by the main character being a former trapeze artist and that it was set in a small California town in the 1930’s. It wasn’t what I expected, but I still enjoyed it.

It opens with Amalie Vaughn escaping a serial killer and then jumps forward several months to her new town of Burning Cove and a show featuring a robot, who kills the inventor, Dr. Pickwell, during the show. This is a relatively short book, but it has a lot going on. Maybe too much. I feel like if she had expanded the book a little, more attention could have been paid to character development and to some of the side stories. The book is basically about retrieving a cypher machine that was stolen during Dr. Pickwell’s show. There is a large cast of characters and it took me a while to get them and their roles straight in the mystery. There is also the mystery of Amalie’s would be killer’s accomplice,

Back to the basics - after the attack, Amalie leaves the circus and buys an inn in Burning Cove to start anew. We aren’t privy to any of this as the book leaps ahead to this after her attack. We get filled in a little on her thoughts, but I think those six months would in and of themselves be a story. Luther Pell runs the town’s hottest club, The Paradise, and while he’s what I would consider a main character, we just don’t learn a lot about him. Matthias Jones works with him and they are trying to recover the cypher machine. Matthias has a unique skill set, which is kind of odd, but it doesn’t bother Amalie and is key to the resolution of both mysteries. I’d rather not spoil too much. As mentioned the cast of characters is big. I particularly liked Willa, who was in the circus with Amalie and her Aunt Hazel, and who shows up at the Hidden Cove Inn because she has nowhere else to go. She takes to the inn immediately and I would love to have seen more of this story -- the building of the inn. Another story thrown in is the rumored haunting of the inn by a psychic who died there. They ultimately take advantage of it, since the murder of Dr Pickwell, who was staying at the inn, was providing less than positive publicity.

Other characters include a female private detective, with a hinted at back story, a newspaper reporter, a gossip columnist, a fading movie star and his chauffeur, a stalker, and the “bad guy.” In addition to the mystery, this is a romance between Matthias and Amalie.

As I said, I enjoyed the story and debated between three and four stars. I ultimately with three for a few reasons. The relationship between Amalie and Matthias moves very fast, like over a week. The sex scenes were cheesy and added nothing to the story. Character backstories were hinted at, but that’s it. I’m not sure if this is because they’ll be in future books or not. This book is rich in characters and I kind of want to know where they go. How does the inn do? How does Matthias family react to Amalie? What about Matthias and Luther’s next adventure? What is the private investigators backstory? What happens to the fading actor? It almost seemed as if it ended in the middle or that she rushed the story because she wanted to be done. And then, there were all the references to flying. It is throughout the book and after awhile it was just a little more cheese in a book that had enough cheese. Honestly, for how many best sellers this author has, I was surprised by the amount of cheesiness in this book. It had the potential to be great, but fell a little short. That’s not to say I won’t read other stories set in Burning Cove. I recommend if you like the author or the time period, just be forewarned that while the mystery is good, if a little convoluted, the romance is rushed and a little lacking.


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