Moonlight On The Thames by Lauren Westwood

I really, really didn't like this book.  The only saving grace for it was I didn't abandon it partway through and I was VERY tempted to.  It is the Festive Season so though so in the spirit of goodwill to all men I did read it through to the bitter end and, to be entirely fair, I did enjoy the last 20% of the book substantially more than the rest of it.

The plotting is patchy throughout and there is an attempt to build suspense in the story but in a very clumsy way so you find yourself not really caring about the backstories of the characters, or what ultimately happens to them.  The drawing out of the reveal over the damage to Dmitri's hands is perhaps the worst example of this - it is referenced numerous times but we have to get well past the halfway point to find out what the problem is.  In fact, Dmitri is a very poorly realised character in the book and, for me, he felt almost racially profiled (maybe a touch extreme there but come on - Russian and loves nothing more than playing piano and drinking tea with preserves to sweeten it - and that more or less sums the whole character up).

Nicola is a slightly fuller character on the page.  I will admit that the changes she goes through throughout the book are the best bit about it and probably the only thing that kept me reading to be honest.  Unfortunately this was not enough to make me actively enjoy the read.