Book Review-On, Off by Colleen McCullough- Audio Book

I listened to On, Off by Colleen McCullough on an audio book borrowed from the library. I found myself intrigued by the story and eager to listen every day for more clues to the identity of the brutal killer of a minimum of 14 mixed race girls. The body of a victim is discovered by accident in the refrigeration unit at the Hughlings Center, a research facility. Detective Carmine Delmonico is brought in to discover the murderer. McCullough soon involves Carmine in a romantic entanglement with Desdemona Dupre, who is in a management position at the Hug as the facility is called. I felt this part of the book to be the least interesting, mainly because while Carmine is somewhat intriguing, both characters lack any real appealing characteristics. The eccentric group of suspects are far more interesting. I found that the book took longer to find its way to the end of some scenes than necessary. This caused the action to slow down and made me want to fast forward until I found another action-packed scene. I kept expecting there to be a reason why McCullough set the story in 1965. I never did find one. After some research, I did find that McCullough was a neuroscientist for twenty years before she was published, so that explains the setting in a science research facility. Ultimately, I think the book was too long. There were many passages that did not seem to move the story along in the least. While it may have served the purpose of explaining some motivations for characters actions, it was not necessary in helping to discover the identity of the murderer. The two main characters, Carmine Delmonico and Desdemona Dupre were equally uninteresting and so, seemed well-matched for each other. Still, I did ultimately listen to the whole audio book so there must have been enough happening for me to finish the story. I don't think I can highly recommend it, but I would not discourage any of her fans from giving it a try.