A Change of Circumstance reminds me of the repositioning sails cruise ships do, to move, free of passengers, to another location to begin ferrying people in a different area.

This is listed as a mystery, but it’s more of a domestic slice of life book about Simon and his family, and Brookie and his family, and Cat and all the DCs, and poor Mr Lionel, and the Chinese herbalist, and the junkie found dead of an OD/contaminated batch of heroin and a couple of animals and Olivia and whether Simon is going to get with Rachel and ugh.

The crime is laid out, so there’s no spoilers in place by saying if you’ve read Oliver Twist, you’ve read this story before, only better in that book, because this crime is an homage to that. There’s even an Olivia to help get any non-literary heathens up to speed on where they could track down the OG version.

Seriously, though, I really didn’t care about Simon at all. This is the first book in the series I’ve read,but if the writing is like this in all of them – sometimes ending a chapter very abruptly, almost as if there’s something that’s been left out, or hopping between two or three heads without any break to help us figure out whose head we’re in now – I won’t be going back to book one, as I do with many other series, and I definitely won’t be picking up/requesting the next one. The latter I really, really do not like: head-hopping only works if it’s done well. This was not. The story was fractured and quite unenjoyable for that reason alone. Put all the rest in between all the domestic stuff, and it’s a sandwich not worth eating.

Two out of five stars.

Thanks to Abrams/Overlook Press and NetGalley for the reading copy.