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Review: Strangers in Budapest by Jessica Keener



Blurb from Goodreads:
Budapest is a city of secrets, a place where everything is opaque and nothing is as it seems. It is to this enigmatic city that a young American couple, Annie and Will, move with their infant son shortly after the fall of the Communist regime. For Annie, it is an effort to escape the ghosts from her past; for Will, it is a chance to try his wings as an entrepreneur in Hungary’s newly developing economy.

But only a few months after moving there, they receive a secretive request from friends in the US to check up on an old man who also has recently come to Budapest. When they realize that his sole purpose for coming there is to exact revenge on a man whom he is convinced seduced and then murdered his daughter, Will insists they have nothing to do with him. Annie, however, unable to resist anyone she feels may need her help, soon finds herself enmeshed in the old man’s plan, caught up in a scheme that will end with death. 
My Review:
 
This was on the verge of being interesting but I felt it was a bit repetitive and could have done with some editing.  I also expected a bigger mystery - the climax at the end was over before it started and we were left with more questions than answers.  The premise was interesting as was the setting of Budapest in the 90s.  It was very atmospheric but something was missing - maybe more backstory?  The history/backstory as it was told was one-sided and so we didn't get another perspective, which would have really elevated this book.  I hope you have better luck with it - it definitely had some good parts even if it was a little boring, unexplained and repetitive. 
Strangers in Budapest comes out today November 14, 2017, and you can purchase HERE.
She had run out of things to say. That was her problem. Their problem. This inability to find words to make things better. It was so much easier to say nothing. She felt the seductive pull of it. Stop speaking. Sink into quicksand. Become silent. Pretend things will be okay. Sink into silence as if it could protect her from the noise of life above and all around her. it was an old family habit, this silence. She leaned back in the seat, the music and the wheezing rush of the air conditioner meshing together. Silence was the phantom body in her family. 

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