Horrendous attempt at NYC accent mars otherwise gr

…otherwise great book. (Accent info, below.)

Once again, Simon Brett treats the reader to an interesting mystery fleshed out by quite accurate portrayals of various subcultures and their inhabitants/adherents. Mr. Brett continues his excellent portrayal of a woman with high-functioning autism (/Asperger’s). Particularly realistic is that, owing to her complete ignorance of being autistic, this woman has the typical internal thoughts of the undiagnosed autistic; she berates herself for being different from “regular” persons. I’m hoping that, in a later book, the author has remedy the situation. Given that, even in 2021, the scientific and practical medicine spheres give almost no attention to high-functioning autism in females, and even less diagnoses of such, I’m not holding my breath.

At one point, the author refers to a specific English man’s “attempt at a New York Accent”. This is very ironic, given that the narrator’s repeated attempts at a New York City accent fall extremely short of the mark. I wouldn’t have had any idea WHAT accent the narrator was attempting, if the author hadn’t described it ahead of time. (From this description, it’s a Brooklyn accent, that for some reason is only referred to as a “New York City” one.) Seriously, it has to be the worst attempt by a British English speaker, of the myriad “short of the mark” ones I have heard over the years.

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