The Man in the Tree

This is a reasonably interesting science-fictional mystery, but no one in it - including the investigator - seems to have ever read a mystery, nor knows anything about investigative procedures. Not only that, but for at least the first half of the book if not longer, the protagonist spends a huge number of pages mentally commenting about the physical appearance of, and fantasizing at great length what it would be like to have sex with, literally every single female he meets. And rather than trying to investigate impartially, he goes at it from the angle that he needs to figure out how to exonerate the main suspect, because he has the hots for her and wants to bed her.

I nearly threw the book against the wall several times, but it was from the library. The sexual objectivization reduces once he's finally encountered every female in the book a couple of times. It's just bizarre. The author is an older woman, so I don't know whether it's because she actually thinks that way, or because she was trying to appeal to male readers. Several of her beta readers were women. I find it hard to believe that someone didn't point out to her how much of an a$$hole her protagonist is (he is clearly intended to be perceived as a good guy). I think I kept reading out of a morbid fascination with what a trainwreck it was.

The rest of the mystery and story is okay, once the author finally gets on with telling the story - but as a big mystery reader, I would have to say that it isn't a shining exemplar of the genre.