review: the widow's daughter by nicholas edlin

Billed as a story of a man haunted by his time as a doctor with the Marines in New Zealand during World War II, The Widow's Daughter takes an excruciatingly long time to get started. The pivotal characters (other than the Marines) are not introduced in the first 100 pages and the murder of Emily's brother occurs just shy of page 300 of a 370 page book. The earlier plot is somewhat interesting for its take on what the war was like for those stationed away from the action, but it grows tiresome as the carousing goes on and on. The Widow's Daughter starts to pick up once Peter learns of Emily's past and who she really is to Oscar, but there are far too few pages left for that story to really develop.
2/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Penguin.