REVIEWED by Louise for Between the Covers blog:


Dead Politician Society is the debut novel by Robin Spano. A murder mystery, DPS introduces us to Clare Vengel, a 22-year-old rookie police officer with the Toronto police. When a politician is murdered Clare is given her first undercover assignment: to investigate a group called The Society for Political Utopia which has claimed credit for the murder. As the group appears to be linked to the political science classes at the local university, Clare enrolls in the PoliSci class hoping to find information about the killer. As more politicians are murdered, Clare learns that more than one person has a reason to kill.

Generally speaking, I love murder mysteries. I’m a huge fan of the genre and it is one that I often fall back on when I burn myself out on the paranormal. Having said that, I went through this book with mixed feelings. BtCers, you know my view on character development and how integral I feel the characters are to any story. I can forgive a lot if I love the characters. I have to be honest. *sighs* I didn’t really like Clare. She’s 22-years-old, which as the mom of a girl minion that age I feel is still rather young. But Clare acts younger than minion 1 does, and behaves in some very irresponsible ways... such as getting drunk while on the job. Truth be told, I seriously wanted to ground her and cut off her allowance more than once. #TimeOutNeeded

I think if this book were told solely from Clare’s perspective I might have actually disliked it. Which isn’t fair, because in the end Clare is very realistic. (I can think of two or three of my daughter’s friends who I want to hang by their toes for being obnoxious.) However, DPS is told from multiple points of view, and each provides us with an insight into another character and another piece of the puzzle. I will say this for Spano... good or bad, each character made me feel something: frustration, amusement, a sincere desire to smack them upside the head for being a pompous ass. (My sincere apologies to Professor Easton.)

The transition between character POVs is well done and works to keep the story moving and interesting... which is saying something because I’m seriously NOT a fan of politics. Spano offered up enough twists and turns that the ending wasn’t predictable. Overall, Dead Politician Society was a fun and interesting read, and my irritation with Clare aside, I plan to read the next book in this series, Death Plays Poker.

Rating: 3.5 stars