Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I did it again...I fell for the Amazon hype on this novel. Its premise was intriguing. The novel begins with an author, Manuel, in his home who is suddenly disturbed by loud pounding on this door. Turns out to be two police who have come to inform him his husband, Alvaro, has been killed in a road accident. Promising beginning...a couple husband/ husband. But, very soon the complication arises: the husband who was killed was NOT where his husband thought he would/should be. And that's the mystery of the novel--who was Alvaro really. And was he really killed in an accident, or did someone kill him. It takes almost 500 pages to "solve" that. The novel could have benefitted from a strict editor (think Maxwell Perkins). There are passages that have little relationship to the hero. There are reams of conversation--back and forth dialogue--that sound forced. There are characters who are not well-drawn. They are manipulated by the author just to advance the plot. I finished this book because...well, damn it...I started it. And I had bought the paperback. But I will redouble my efforts to not fall for the "hype." And to check the publisher--this one was published by Amazon/Crossing ( a subsidiary of Amazon that "scours the world" for non-English books to translate). So maybe that's my beef--maybe I didn't like the translator's choice of words. There are times where the word choice is ... odd. And it ends up giving the novel a jerky feel--whipping back and forth between serious fiction expression and beach read.