The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss (A Dahlia Moss Mystery)

by Max Wirestone

The odds of Dahlia successfully navigating adulthood are 3,720 to 1. But never tell her the odds.

Meet Dahlia Moss, the reigning queen of unfortunate decision-making in the St. Louis area. Unemployed broke, and on her last bowl of ramen, she's not living her best life. But that's all about to change.

Before Dahlia can make her life any messier on her own she's offered a job. A job that she's woefully under-qualified for. A job that will lead her to a murder, an MMORPG, and possibly a fella (or two?).

Turns out unfortunate decisions abound, and she's just the girl to deal with them.

• ISBN10: 0316385980
• ISBN13: 9780316385985
• Publish Date: 23 February 2017 (first published 20 October 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Redhook
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Rating: 4.5 Stars - rounded up, because I laughed so robustly and often while reading this book

In the "meet the author" page, Wirestone states that he observed that he observed, that his mystery readers and geek readers were increasingly the same. This was the inspiration for Dahlia Moss, and I have to say, he delivered.

This is the story of Dahlia Moss. She's in her mid-twenties, and constantly "between jobs". Her life was not headed in the best direction, when she is hired as a private detective to recover a spear, that was stolen, from an online RPG game. She embraces her inner Jessica Fletcher, and embarks on her journey to find the spear, and along the way, she finds some friends, herself, and her purpose.

Dahlia is a hilarious PI, who is reminiscent of Veronica Mars. I found her escapades utterly amusing, and her endless interactions with zany characters added to the hilarity.

I am not a gamer, but I am a little geeky, and geek-ily aware. I loved all the pop culture references (really, Susan Powter, I have not thought of her in years), and I just really hope this turns into a series.

Great heroine - Yes
Awesome supporting cast - Yes
Absorbing story/mystery - Yes

[Rinn]

I received a copy of this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Also posted on my blog, Rinn Reads.

A murder mystery set partly in an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)? Intriguing.

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss definitely appealed to my (not so) inner geek, as the cover claims. In fact, not only geeks will be able to understand Dahlia. She will probably be familiar to many a twenty-something year old, trying to find their way in life. Unemployed for thirteen months, apparently useless at job interviews and unlucky in love, Dahlia Moss is offered a job by a strange friend of her flatmate – as a private detective. She is asked to work out who stole something from him. But that something is an item from an online game, and within a few days of asking her, her ’employer’ has been murdered. Dahlia soon finds herself caught up in a lot more than she expected.

At first, I found Dahlia a funny character. She was witty and happy-go-lucky, but soon her jokes and moods began to rub off on me and I actually found her to be quite irritating. How could someone be so useless, and miss SO MANY CLUES? Additionally, her flatmate felt a little too much like the Manic Pixie Dream Girl type of character, with her impromptu home theatre shows and crazy personality. In fact, most characters felt a little ‘cookie cutter’.

On the other hand, the story was quite fun, if a bit ridiculous. Dahlia gets dragged into the game more and more often as she gets deeper into the mystery, and learns more about her ’employers’ guildmates. However, the overall conclusion felt so weak, especially the motive behind the murder – as well as the murderer being quite obvious to the reader.

Whilst Dahlia Moss was a fun read at times, it loses points from me for having a rather abrasive main character, as well as being a little too obvious in its mystery. However, whilst the subject of MMORPGs/video games in books seems to be appearing more often, it’s still not that common – so if you’re looking for a book that involves those elements, it might be worth taking a look at this.

[Lianne]

I was approved an ARC of this book by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2015/10/19/review-the-unfortunate-decisions-of-dahlia-moss/

Simply put, I loved this book: it was funny, it was intriguing, totally understood where Dahlia was coming from in her life.

Let’s start with the funny. I loved Dahlia’s little remarks and observations about the various people she meets over the course of this very strange case she’s been hired to complete, not to metion the nature of the case itself (seriously: to retrieve a item from an MMORPG?) and how she came to be recommended (I was as flummoxed as Dahlia–but don’t worry, everything is explained). I love all of her little comments and geek culture-examples and connections she makes along the way (especially the Pokeman ones, haha; and the Doctor Who comments; etc.). It’s great.

The mystery itself was very curious, as it starts off dealing with an MMORPG theft but then real life makes things a whole lot more grimmer and confusing. I love how Dahlia is determined to solve this case even as absurd as its beginnings were; it was also interesting how the Zoth MMORPG found its way into the story, bridging the online mystery with the real-life mystery. She and her endlessly strange friend/acquaintance/lodger Charice had some rather interesting ways of going about their detective work :)

Which brings me to Dahlia as a character. I absolutey loved and can totally relate to her from the employment situation to the geek culture stuff to trying to figure out people and the state of her social life. I was rooting for her to crack the case, to get a job (or establish herself as a detective, depending on how the case panned out), to gain some new friends, to get the guy–to be happy and better off than where she was at the start of the book.

I’m not sure if this review/entry is helpful in reflecting my thoughts on the book but suffice to say I really enjoyed reading The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss. I enjoyed all of the character interactions and how the secondary characters help Dahlia along in her case (even though most of them seem to fall into stereotypical roles; Charice comes to mind here, despite of her randomness and contrast to Dahlia). Gamers and geek culture enthusiasts and partakers will enjoy the references and how it adds to the story. Readers who love Veronica Mars and Ernest Clive’s Ready Player One looking for an interesting read will want to check this title out :)