Murder by Death

I feel like this book was both better than I thought it was, but not quite as good as I expected.  The former because my reading was more fractured than I'd like and the book never got a chance to really suck me in; it was always getting interrupted.  The latter, because its novel-to-mystery ratio was higher than I'd have wished.

Isaac Severy was a brilliant mathematician whose last act before dying was writing a bombshell of an equation, which he hid away.  Days after his death, his granddaughter receives a letter from him with his last wishes: to burn all his work save this equation, which she should delver to one trusted colleague and no one else.  But first, she must find the equation using the clues left for her as she goes about fulfilling his final requests.  

At the same time, the rest of the Severy family - blessed with brilliance and saddled with dysfunction - is left to pick up the pieces of their lives, re-orienting themselves after they lose their axis and another death unmoors them completely.  Hazel's uncle, Philip, is receiving mysterious notes and visits from someone eager to meet up with him and discuss his father's work, someone who was harassing Isaac in his final days. 

I ended up caring about most of the characters except Hazel herself.  She was pretty unmoored from the start, and never felt like she had much resolve.  For me this resulted in the impression that she never took any direction action to find the equation, so much as the clues threw themselves at her in desperation. 

Speaking of clues, my biggest annoyance of all was that one of the clues was not only not discovered by Hazel, but the reader didn't got left out too.  Both discover the solution after the fact, and it's a letdown.

These are minor grievances though, and I'm not sure I'd have felt the same way about these things had I been able to commit my time and attention to the book as it deserved.  Perhaps more focus would have allowed me to connect more with Hazel and the story's mystery.  Either way, it was an enjoyable read and kept me entertained, if not deeply invested.