This morning I finished a book that I got for review, I think. Don’t know where it came from but I started out thinking “oooh, this seems good” and then got to a point where some of it bugged me. Then I hit the last 30 pages or so and it all fell apart.

I feel awful but sorry, I have to say this; I do not want to read any more mysteries where the key to the puzzle, the resolution, has to do with child molestation, especially a girl being molested by her father. I feel heartless and mean saying that but I have to say that I’m sick to death of it. I also see it coming in far too many books. I’ve seen it in manuscripts from Poisoned Pen (although I recently received some guidelines from them which indicate that they won’t publish books with that as a theme. I hadn’t known that and I’m relieved because it means that should I get a manuscript like that, I can turn it back and not feel obligated as I do, to read something I don’t want to read.)

I was about to give this book a good, albeit slightly mixed review. Now I will not review it and it’s getting dumped.

This is not to say this is not a critical issue; it is. That we talk about it now is a damn good thing. But as a theme in mysteries it is, I’m sorry to say, overused, tiresome and ugly. I cannot, will not and do not want to see it again. There are only so many ways to present this horrible reality and I have seen lots of them. I don’t want to see them any more.

I wish to hell there were a way to code books so that if It had a little color dot on it, it would mean I could skip it. I’d like to say “there’s enough in a book that I’ll read it anyway” but while that might have been so say five years ago, it’s not any more. Of course, that’s so not possible because it gives too much away. But I just have gotten to the point where I don’t want this in my fiction.

Is that an awful thing to say? I can deal with so many other issues, although I also admit I don’t read sadism, torture, stalking or most serial killer stuff. I feel awful saying that this theme is “trite” but oh dear gods, it just seems like every third to fifth book I get to read uses it as a theme. Don’t editors get tired of seeing it?

I wish to hell I’d seen it earlier in this particular book (and no, no spoilers here, I will not name the book) because I resent that I invested time in it. There wasn’t really anything unique about the way it was represented and it just was sad and ugly and I’m now pissed off and tired. Anyone else feel this way? Am I, what, too cynical? Too picky? Is there a value to be gained in reading this theme in yet another book that I am not seeing?

I don’t know what I’m going to read next, but I suspect I might just go back and reread something. So that I don’t face the possible let-down again of reading a resolution that has come to wreck my reading day.