Murder in the City of Liberty - Historical Fiction

Goodreads:  Murder in the City of Liberty (Van Buren and DeLuca #2) by Rachel McMillan

Rating: Just Okay
Source:  Blog Tour

Description:  Determined to make a life for herself, Regina "Reggie" Van Buren bid goodbye to fine china and the man her parents expected her to marry and escaped to Boston. What she never expected to discover was that an unknown talent for sleuthing would develop into a business partnership with the handsome, yet shy, Hamish DeLuca.
Their latest case arrives when Errol Parker, the leading base stealer in the Boston farm leagues, hires Hamish and Reggie to investigate what the Boston police shove off as a series of harmless pranks. Errol believes these are hate crimes linked to the outbreak of war in Europe, and he's afraid for his life. Hamish and Reggie quickly find themselves in the midst of an escalating series of crimes that seem to link Boston to Hamish's hometown of Toronto.

When an act of violence hits too close to home, Hamish is driven to a decision that may sever him from Reggie forever . . . even more than her engagement to wealthy architect Vaughan Vanderlaan.

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Genre: Mystery - Historical 

Why I Picked This Book:  I've been loving historical mysteries lately and this sounded fun.

My Impression:  I'm not sure what happened here.  I mean I wanted to love it.  I've been loving historical mysteries lately and this really seemed perfect.  Unfortunately, for me, it just fell a bit flat.   I never connected to Hamish or Reggie or the mystery itself in general.  I also had a lot of difficulty keeping all the characters straight.  Now this is the second book in the series and I haven't read the first book  so a lot of my issues could stem from that so I'm trying not to judge it too harshly.

The setting is a lot of fun and I love the premise. The pairing of the former socialite, Reggie, and the shyer bookish, Hamish, has the makings for a lot of fun.  This also started off with a bit of action and the plot progressed fairly quickly but it just never really gained traction for me.  The main characters were just a bit too flat and the mystery, while interesting, felt a bit disjointed. 

Would I Read More of this Series/Author?  I like the premise enough that I'll probably pick up the first book in the series to see if that will help me make sense of everything and hopefully that one will have the connection that I couldn't find with this one.

Would I Recommend this Book?  Probably not this one - especially if you haven't read the first book. 

* I received this book in exchange for an honest review.  As always my opinions and impressions are completely my own. *