Review: Playing it Safe

Playing it Safe by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's the height of the Blitz, but as the bombs rain down on London might after night, Major Ramsay informs Electra (Ellie) McDonnell that she must travel to Sunderland for purposes as yet unknown, but while she waits for further instructions she should start to make friends with the other residents of the guest house where she will be staying.

Ellie hasn't even arrived at the guesthouse when she is roughly shoved into the path of an oncoming vehicle, luckily a passer-by rescues her, so she is horrified when the same man dies in the street outside her guesthouse, clutching a cryptic note in his hand. Could his death be related to her mission?

I think others have commented that these books seem to have settled into a holding pattern. Major Ramsay never tells Ellie what is going on, they have a moment, Major Ramsay pulls away, Ellie finds the clue that cracks the case wide open but doesn't share/forgets about it. Also, and I have just checked, at 267 pages this isn't much shorter than the first book (300 pages) but it just feels like less happened, or maybe it was all more superficial? Also, there seemed to be a lot of things which happened off-page, eg they get an anonymous tip that X is happening.

The mystery over whether Ellie's mother really murdered her father is also proceeding at a glacial pace, although there is a development right at the end of the book.

I just don't feel after three books the same attraction to the characters as I did with Amory and Milo (although I do recall being very irritated by the on-again, off-again nature of their relationship). Nevertheless, I have pre-ordered the fourth book.

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