The Good Suicides

by Antonio Hill

[Lianne]

I won an ARC of this novel courtesy of the GoodReads First Reads programme. This review in its entirety was originally posted at caffeinatedlife.net: http://www.caffeinatedlife.net/blog/2014/06/05/review-the-good-suicides/

It took a chapter or two to orient me to the story–the first chapter was especially chilling, setting up the mystery of the overall story–but once the story and the characters were introduced, I couldn’t quite put it down. There’s so much mystery behind all of the characters involved and surrounding all of the apparent suicides: who is behind it all? What are they hiding? How long before they crack? What’s at stake here?

All of the suspects involved have very fleshed-out back stories and home lives to accompany the mystery, as well as inspectors Hector Salgado and Leire Castro. The characters are all pretty morose characters with rather sad backgrounds–and Hector Salgado definitely has a very terse demeanor–but it’s interesting to see how their home lives or their character histories affect the way they solve their cases.

There are some events in this novel that carries on from the first Inspector Salgado novel, The Summer of Dead Toys, but the narrative has a good way of bringing the reader up to speed if he or she is not familiar with the events. It’s also important because it directly ties in to Hector Salgado’s character.

The Good Suicides overall was an interesting mystery, quite chilling with the images it evokes and with a cliffhanger of sorts that has me wondering what’s next for Inspector Salgado and that one particular case that’s more or less ongoing (whether the characters realise it or not). If you’re a reader of mystery novels, you’ll want to check this novel out.