JILL HAND - WHITE OAKS (2020)

Synopsis/blurb...

Aimee Trapnell reluctantly leaves her apartment on Manhattan’s Central Park West to return to her childhood home in Georgia for her father’s ninetieth birthday. Also on hand are her two brothers, wily Marsh and ne’er-do-well Trainor. With a forty-billion-dollar inheritance at stake, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the old man happy.

To their shock they learn that what their father wants for his birthday is to kill someone. He doesn’t care who it is. He just wants to know what it’s like to commit murder.

Betrayal, double-dealing, and fast-paced action set the Trapnells on a collision course with an unexpected villain. Their journey takes them from the swamps of Georgia, to Italy’s glittering Amalfi coast, to rugged Yellowstone National Park.

Re-reading the blurb, I'm again reminded that this had the potential to be really entertaining, quirky, a bit off the wall and one that was right up my street. A couple of months down the road, all I can remember is a slight sense of disappointment.

Lots of the story has disappeared from my consciousness and I've no real desire to relive the book by flicking back through it.

Story - underwhelming. Characters - not especially interesting or likable, with the exception of Marsh who grew on me through the book. Pace - can't remember. Outcome - forgotten. Setting - Georgia mainly, I can't remember the other locations visited in the book.

Bits were entertaining. I think someone got eaten by an alligator, or maybe we were just supposed to think that? I can't recall. Money and a massive inheritance potentially is a motivating factor for some of the family. A thermonuclear weapon, in the form of a suitcase bomb is the main focus towards the latter portion of the book. It kind of starts out as one thing and morphs into something totally different.