Book Review: A Game of Secrets

A Game of Secrets
By Dawn Tripp
Random House, 2011
English, 273 pages


Description from Amazon:
In 1957, Jane Weld was eleven years old when her father, Luce, disappeared. His skiff was found drifting near a marsh, empty except for his hunting coat and a box of shotgun shells. No one in their small New England town knew for sure what happened until, three years later, Luce’s skull rolled out of a gravel pit, a bullet hole in the temple. Rumors sprang up that he had been murdered by the jealous husband of his mistress, Ada Varick.

Now, half a century later, Jane is still searching for the truth of her father’s death, a mystery made more urgent by the unexpected romance that her willful daughter, Marne, has struck up with one of Ada’s sons. As the love affair intensifies, Jane and Ada meet for their weekly Friday game of Scrabble, a pastime that soon transforms into a cat-and-mouse game of words long left unspoken, and dark secrets best left untold.

Review: 
This book captured me really quickly and I was racing to read it to see what was going to happen. The plot twists and shifts in time a lot, but it's very easy to follow. I did not see the ending coming. Other reviewers have said there were clues about it, but I didn't catch any of them! I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending though. I'm not a plot spoiler so I can't say what happens, but the ending just kinda felt flat to me. It felt like a lot of momentum built and then just stopped.

There were a lot of random characters who get introduced, then forgotten. Kinda makes me wonder why the were there at all. I guess I can see how some of them were devices to move a character along. There were several scenes I didn't understand why someone did what they did. One particular scene was when Marne is riding her bike and stops short when she sees Hank. I don't know why. It was a little vague.

There are many questions left unanswered and I suppose that leaves room for another book in a series (this book has many characters from Tripp's previous books - which are in my nook wishlist...), but I wanted to understand more than I did about who knows what and what happens to some in the end.

I have say though, through Jane and Ada's Scrabble game...I have been watching closer on my Words With Friends games to see if I can pull off some of the "boodles" that Ada loves! I also learned a lot of "dinks" that I've been using...much to certain friends dismay!

I received a copy of the book in exchange for a review. No additional compensation has been received and I was not required to write a positive review.