[review] The Good Teacher by Rachel Sargeant

This mystery is definitely grittier and faster-paced than the cozies I’ve been reading lately, but it still had a cozy vibe to it, which I think had a lot to do with the main character, Detective Constable Pippa “Agatha” Adams.

Title: The Good Teacher
Author: Rachel Sargeant
First Published: December 14, 2018
Publisher: Killer Reads
Categories: Mystery
Acquired: from the author via NetGalley

*** Thank you to Rachel Sargeant and Killer Reads for providing me with a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. ***

A CHANGE OF PACE

The action starts from page one and doesn’t let up. A woman wakes up to find herself gagged and bound to a chair in her own home. Her assailants are nowhere to be seen, but there’s an urgency to escape in case they come back. There aren’t a lot of details for the reader at first but eventually it comes out that her husband, a local teacher, has been found murdered in a field.

The police are called to the home, and one of them is DC Pippa ‘Agatha’ Adams, who is on her first day as DC.

From there the action continues to move briskly, as the police race to find the killer. Everyone they talk to seems to have a high opinion of the victim – “the good teacher”. He was a loving husband, a good brother, a well-respected colleague and a teacher that ran an after-school homework club for at-risk youth.

But was he really as he appeared? As the police dig deeper, they start to find cracks in his ‘nice’ persona, but still can’t seem to find the killer.

A MEMORABLE MAIN CHARACTER

The main character, Pippa, has many ‘cozy’ elements to her – she’s nice, friendly, a bit shy and often doesn’t know when to stop talking – but she’s different from the ‘usual’ cozy mystery heroine because she’s a policewoman. She’s also incredibly normal and easy to relate to.

After she’s paired with Sgt. Mike Matthews, Pippa casually compares their case to an Agatha Christie novel, thus earning her the nickname ‘Agatha’. Matthews starts out a bit of a jerk, but eventually, even he warms up to Pippa.

THIS BOOK KEPT ME UP HALF THE NIGHT

I’m a fairly quick reader, but since I have pesky things (like a job and mealtimes) that seem to get in the way of enjoying a book for hours at a time, I generally take about 2-3 days to finish a book. Not this one! I read this one in one sitting (although I did stay up until 3am to do so!). I just couldn’t put it down. The book moves along fast and there’s very few lapses in the pacing.

There’s an incredible amount of twists and turns, but it never became confusing. I was kept guessing until the final reveal. Part of the intrigue are the characters themselves. For example, the reader gets hints that something traumatic happened in Pippa’s past to caused her to abruptly quit dancing (something she was very good at) and join the police force, but the full story never comes out. In fact, many of the characters hint at having much deeper, more interesting stories. I hope that there are more DC Adams stories coming so that we can get to know the characters better.

READ IT FOR YOURSELF

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