Finlay Donovan Is Killing It | Book Review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’ve changed my review for this book twice now. First, it was a five, then after listening to a podcast and realizing there may have been a small (but impactful) plot hole, I changed it to a four. But the more I think back on this book, the more I realized I’d enjoyed it. So know that it’s a perfect rating of a slightly imperfect book… unless I missed a detail.

Finlay Donovan is a recently divorced mother of two, and she’s in the trenches. Her 4-year-old daughter has just cut her own hair, and her baby’s hair is filled with waffle crumbs. The babysitter hasn’t arrived, almost all of her bills are past due, and Finlay is late to meet her agent to discuss her late pages for her next novel. Finlay is ready to kill someone.

When Finlay calls her cheating ex-husband Steven (who is now engaged to their real estate agent, Theresa) to ask him to take the kids for a few hours, he tells her that he fired the babysitter because he found her unnecessary. It’s revealed that Steven now owns their house and that Finlay is paying rent to him, but she’s behind on this, too. She’s in desperate need of a cash influx but has already spent her advance from her newest novel. Steven agrees to take the kids for a few hours but pushes the idea that he thinks the kids should live with him and Theresa, and Finlay knows they have the resources to fight for custody.

Finlay changes her meeting location to a local Panera and moves to fix her daughter’s hair as the child suggested: With duct tape. She doesn’t have scissors, so she cuts the tape with a knife, and in her rush out the door, she throws both of these items in her diaper bag. As she’s leaving the house, the electricity turns off. She’s going to have to beg Steven to pay to have it turned back on.

When she gets to the meeting with her agent, things are tense. She hasn’t gotten anywhere with her novel and Sylvia is expecting to see pages.

Finlay tells her that the murders in her books are typically very neat, but she wants to do something different this time. She says she needs more time to research torture, code words, and other more complicated plot devices in order to help make a name for herself in the murder mystery genre. She also tells her that for her next book, she won’t take less than $15,000.

While the women talk, Finlay realizes that a woman at a nearby table is listening intently, and has noticed the odd items in Finlay’s diaper bag. When the meeting ends, Finlay gets up to clear the table, and when she returns, she finds a note from the woman who’d been eavesdropping. On the note is the name Harris Mickler, an address, and $50,000.

Finlay goes to her car and calls the number. The woman who answers is Patricia Mickler, who tells Finlay that her husband is a bad man who has done bad things. The call is short, but Patricia tells Finlay where he will be that night, and Finlay must decide if she’s going to go check it out… and what she’ll do next.

All in all, I LOVED this book. I thought the plot was smart and fresh, and the characters were well-built. I did not guess the killer, but it was easy to follow along with the plot.

Once I finished this book, I did what I usually do and went to listen to podcasts about it. I tried four different podcasts and was very underwhelmed by what I was hearing. Most of them seemed to mention plot holes that weren’t plot holes at all, they just weren’t paying attention. But one DID point out the actual plot hole that I’ll mention below. Even with the plot hole, I decided to return it to a perfect score because of just how much I loved the book overall. I immediately requested the second (of five) book from Libby.

If you like cozy/lighthearted mystery reads like “Vera Wong…” and “The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year,” I think you’ll devour this one.

*SPOILERS START HERE*

Finlay picks up her kids from their dad one day only to realize he left the baby’s pacifier and blanket at his house. He tells her to go ahead and grab them herself. While she’s there, she scopes out Theresa and Steven’s room, which she’s thrilled to find is a mess. Out of curiosity, Finlay looks up Harris and Patricia Mickler on Theresa’s computer. In many photos, she sees that Patricia seems to be injured, sporting various bandages and braces. She realizes Harris must be abusive. She also sees photos of the animal shelter where Patricia regularly volunteers. Before she leaves the house, she steals one of Theresa’s black dresses.

Finlay drops the kids off with her sister, Georgia, a police officer. Originally, Georgia said she was busy that night, meeting coworkers to discuss their frustration over the Russian mob winning a court case. But eventually, she agrees, and Finlay ends up following Harris to a club. She’s wearing Theresa’s dress and giving Theresa’s name and job when asked. She spots him slipping drugs into the drink of the woman who he’s with. She follows the woman, who innocently thinks she’s at dinner for business, to the bathroom and spills a drink on her to distract her. She tells her she will be back with club soda, but instead goes to Harris’s table where she pretends to know him and switches his date’s drink for his.

When he starts to get woozy, she helps him out to her van. She has every intent to drop him back off with Patricia and tell her they have no deal, so she calls her. But Patricia tells her it needs to happen and gives Finlay the password to Harris’s phone. Finlay finds folders of photos of passed-out women in various states of undress. After she watches a blackmail video where Harris tells a woman he will tell her husband if she doesn’t pay him, it’s clear that Harris is drugging, assaulting, and photographing women for blackmail money.

Finlay knows she can’t take Harris back to Patricia, but she’s not sure what to do with him. She goes home and parks the van, which she leaves running. She goes into the house to call her sister, telling her that she’s trying to write a new book, and she uses the plot of the night to set it up. She asks her sister what her protagonist should do, and Georgia says it’s best to turn him over to the authorities. When she returns to the van, she realizes that her garage door is shut, though she doesn’t remember shutting it. She rushed to Harris to find that he was dead - she did accidentally kill her target. And now she can’t go to the police.

I’ll let you read the book on your own, but wanted to share the plot hole - without giving away every detail. First off, Finlay was not the one who shut her garage door, which means she isn’t the murderer. Finlay’s garage is broken, so things have to happen in a very specific way for the murderer to not get caught. However, the murderer would have no idea that the garage is broken, so how would they have known to take these precautions?

Even with this plot hole, this was an incredibly fun read.