I loved that it switched between all the various viewpoints because it gives the reader a chance to understand the motivations and mindsets of each of the characters, which were each complicated and intense. The writing is incredible, really allowing you to feel what the characters were feeling - like Alice, who has dementia. You could feel her confusion and frustration very clearly. One of our best-known (and easily meme-able) collective nouns is a murder of crows. Unlike many collective nouns, this sense of murder even has enough evidence in print to merit entry into our dictionaries. A Murder of Crows was an enjoyable read, revolving around a British ecologist’s efforts to extricate herself from suspicion of murder. That's not to say that lexicographers are somehow biased against these terms. By all means, resurrect them and use them as much as possible. (But pity the poor pipers, perhaps, and choose a less stingy noun than poverty.) Here's a list to get you started from The Book of Saint Albans:

Mike’s review of A Murder of Crows - Goodreads

The plot is overshadowed by the attraction triangle of the MC and a male colleague and (of course) the handsome detective investigating the crimes. There is so much drama and ridiculous convoluted *unnecessary* sighing and angst which could be resolved with a one sentence explanation that I had to just power through. There are many readers who enjoy that in their books and they'll be in raptures.

Hobbies

I found some of the situations and reactions of the characters to be unrealistic and there weren’t many plot twists for a murder mystery. I also thought that some things could have been better resolved. Alistair Smith and Caroline Baker are the missing couple, and after a search takes place it becomes clear that foul play has taken place.

Collective Nouns: What Do You Call Groups of Things

Tig Torres investigates Hollow Falls' horrific history in this original novel based on the hit podcast Lethal Lit from Einhorn's Epic Productions and iHeartRadio! I really didn't enjoy the format of the novel as it's extremely choppy and some of it irrelevant to the main thrust of the plot. Each chapter is a third person narrative from a different point of view which I find distracting and prevents me from getting fully involved, just as I get settled into one character the viewpoint changes and I have to adjust. The plot which can get hidden in all this swapping is interesting and well thought out but the clever ending is extremely unsatisfactory with nothing tied up in a nice bow. I think that this novel is a bit literary for me. I like a nice straightforward police procedural and this is anything but.As I said the characters are all oddballs. Most of them are well drawn and as the novel progresses explanations for their behaviour are slowly revealed but it's all a bit OTT in the one novel. One of the surprising things about the lists of terms of venery is that they sometimes give different names to the same animal depending upon where they are. My biggest gripe is that this felt like a load of red herrings were thrown into the plot to disguise the obvious nature of the murder. The victim felt very much like the second Mrs De Winter in Rebecca, Nell seemed a little like Temperance Brennan in Kathy Reichs' books (without the social awkwardness) and I'm not sure how this is going to develop into a series, I mean how many murders in a small town would require an ecologist to shed light on the scene? I listened to Ian Skewis narrate this book which I think certainly added to the experience. His mellifluous Scottish voice is perfectly suited to a tale set on the west coast of Scotland. The murderer is revealed in a strange prologue at the end. It's a character we have been following throughout the book, but they are - SURPRISE - a sociopath! I'm really very tired of 'crime' novels where the perpetrator is revealed as a psychopath/sociopath. It's too easy and, from the readers' perspective, very unsatisfying. Apparently there will be another book written about this character, which I will not be reading. One outing with this unsavoury character was enough for me.