Member Review

A Cutting Deceit by Cathy Dunnell

Thank you Netgallery and Bold Stroke Books for an arc for an unbiased review.

This is a book where Valeria owns a hair salon. Or rather, her mob boss husband Sirvan owns the hair salon, and in one corner away from the womens section, it obviously has an area where the men who gather for barber services discuss 'business.'

Athena arrives, and immediately slots into the role, but as an undercover cop, is quietly gathering intel towards bringing Sirvan and his empire down.

This book, while it has some great parts, also, for me at least, fails in some areas too. And it is a shame because it probably would've been a fairly easy fix.
So what did I like and what didn't I like?

The overall themes of the crimes plot were done well, and i certainly felt the anxiety that Valeria felt. Her overall demeanour was one you could certainly understand and was consistent with the criminal aspects going on around her. Seeing her begin to change her stance from willful denial to active fightback in a way she felt she could, was realistic.
The tension as Sirvan began to question who was leaking information, when Valeria genuinely had no idea herself, yet you could see his suspicion grow, was handled well.
My biggest complaint here was how Inna was able to neatly find an escape option with her help. It all seemed just too convenient and didn't gel for me.

What really let it down for me was I felt we had so little of Athena's development. I felt we knew more about Katya than we did her, so the romance felt clunky as a result. Her full motivations, while we got some part of it, also felt incomplete. As I was reading, I kept expecting to have a chapter shift perspective from Valeria to Athena, to show her leaving the salon and then give us a glimpse into her life, yet we never got that in-depth look, and that really was the biggest disappointment for me in the book.

This also was apparent in the ending, that all felt wrapped up neatly, but no depth to it, with Athena (although now Andrea) only giving some basic information about her life, but only in context of Valeria being there, and us not being shown her life.

So how to rate this? I'm struggling on this somewhat, because when the book got it right (as it primarily did with Valeria) it was great. Sadly, the lack of depth on Athena's character meant the crime/romance part just didn't have the impact I felt it should have done.

I'm hitting this at 4/5, although I'd classify it more a 3.5/5 stars 🌟
Having a strong storyline of Valeria with Sirvan especially is the one reason I'm giving it a tentative 4/5 stars. But I would say, don't go into this book expecting it to be a strong book for all main characters, as I feel it falls short. Strong in places, but missing in areas where it was needed.