The Abortionist's Daughter, Elisabeth Hyde

Book: 38
Title: The Abortionist's Daughter
Author: Elisabeth Hyde
Genre: Fiction, women's fiction, mystery
One-sentence summary: When the outspoken doctor at an abortion clinic is murdered, the investigation into her death is complicated by the complex dynamics within her family and by her controversial position within the community.
Why did you get this book? The title grabbed my interest, and I picked it up and was utterly hooked by the first sentence: "The problem was, Megan had just taken the second half of the ecstasy when her father called with the news." First sentence: A+
Do you like the cover? It's fine - a sweater crumpled by the edge of a pool - but I'm irked because there was a lovely little bit of a description at the beginning of the book where they talked about the sweater crumpled by the pool and how the character's purple flipflops were lying near it, their heels darkened with sweat. I am very annoyed that they didn't put the flipflops on the cover.
Did you enjoy the book? I did. At first I was *really* enjoying it: her writing was fresh and sparkling and her characterization was great and her plot was gripping and I was thrilled because I thought I'd discovered another mystery novelist to love - I like really good mystery-genre fiction, but thus far Dennis Lehane is the only novelist who consistently grabs me, with Sarah Dunant coming in second and Ruth Rendell dragging behind in the rear. There's no one else I've read that I find to be worth bothering with at all, so I was excited about Elisabeth Hyde. But then the book kind of fell apart as it went on - her writing went from sparkling to flat, her characterization became inconsistent, and she threw in a truly heinous plot twist that ruined a lot of the last half of the book for me. I wound up enjoying it, but not loving it.
Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? Yeah, she was new to me. I may or may not read something else by her; I did like this, and yet it's hard to like a book so much at the beginning and find yourself so disappointed by the end.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? Another library book. I might pick this up if I see it being sold used and for cheap somewhere.
Anything else? Not really.
Number of pages: 304
Total pages for the year: 11321
Scale of 1 to 10: 7/8