DNF ARC REVIEW: The Rich – by Rachel Lynch

Title: The Rich
Author: Rachel Lynch
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
First published: November 9th 2023
Publisher: Canelo
Finished reading: November 1st 2023
Pages: 343
DNF at 19% (65 pages)

“Sometimes the truth is left discarded for all to see, and sometimes it needs planting.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Canelo in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

REVIEW

Right… I didn’t expect this to happen to be honest. I really enjoyed the Helen Scott Royal Military Police books, and I’ve been wanting to read more of Rachel Lynch ever since. When I saw this new stand-alone, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to do so… The Rich sounded intriguing, and I do always love a good murder mystery. I fully expected to have a great time reading this story, so imagine my surprise when the complete opposite happened… I tried reading The Rich twice, but in the end I had to throw in the towel and make the difficult decision to DNF. I’ll try to explain briefly why I came to that decision below.

Part of the problem most likely lies with myself, as I’ve been in a reading slump for over a month now and slower and more character driven stories just don’t seem to work for me at the moment. And this is exactly what The Rich is, so it could simply be a case of ‘it’s not you, it’s me‘. What I thought was going to be a psychological thriller focusing on a murder investigation actually turned out to be mainly a portrait of a group of let’s say ‘colorful’ characters with only a side of murder… Or at least in the part I did read. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn’t a story I tend to enjoy in the same way.

The Rich uses a multiple POV structure, where we switch between a LOT of different characters who mostly seem to be connected in some way to either Dr. Alex Moore or each other. I usually don’t mind a multiple POV structure, but I did feel that there was a bit too much jumping around going on and it disrupted the pace of the plot. The worst part has a lot to do with the characters themselves though. It’s been a while since I encountered a cast that was basically 99% despicable and considerably cliche, and I honestly couldn’t care less about what happened to any of them. I hated having to spend time with them, and this lack of connection and my negative feelings made it extremely hard to find the motivation to keep reading.

I’m not sure why, but I also clashed horribly with the writing style. I was really surprised to be feeling this way, because like I said before this wasn’t the first time reading this author and I didn’t have issues with the other books. It might just have been that The Rich is a psychological thriller and not a crime thriller, and has a different style? Either way, there were some POVs in particular that had an overdose of short sentences and an especially halted style, and it was something that started to irritate me more and more. The pace was also a lot slower than expected, and like I mentioned before, the many POV switches didn’t help either.

It seems like the author looked up an index of negative behavior/topics, and decided to include every single one in The Rich. I’m talking alcoholism, bullying, eating disorder, cheating, child abuse, rape… I didn’t particularly liked how some of the elements were incorporated into the plot either, and especially the cheating was way too present (and you all know how I feel about that particular element). The characters were all just so extremely unlikeable… And not even the promise of a murder investigation could entice me to keep reading. It’s a shame, but it is easy to say that The Rich most definitely wasn’t for me. If you enjoy reading more character driven psychological thrillers with extremely flawed and unlikeable characters and a LOT of secrets and lies, The Rich will probably work better for you.