Most mystery books are bad. Laughable; hard to even get through. So when someone recommended Duplicate Keys and a quick search revealed Jane Smiley to be a credible Pulitzer Prize novelist, it was a promising start. The cover had neither raised typography nor anything metallic on it; things were looking up. 
In both movies and books I enjoy being tricked. Led towards the reveal but wrong all along the course. The recommendation was tagged with, “you won’t guess the ending, so you’ll actually enjoy it.” That is one of my most favorite and most dreaded phrases. Favorite because, well because that’s awesome. Dreaded because through the whole thing I’ll discredit the obvious and second-guess every thought.
That is exactly what I did. Well before chapter two, the murderer seemed obvious. So I started looking for traps laid between the lines. Smiley’s literary style is refreshing in a mystery, though I still spent every page searching for the unseen clue. The closer I looked, the closer I got landed back at my initial prediction. The book was going to be great. I was being taken for a ride and as long as the murderer didn’t turn out to be an ex-girlfriend blindsiding the reading having never been mentioned prior to the reveal. That is worse then a completely predictable ending.
Luckily Duplicate Keys didn’t introduce an out-of-nowhere murderer. Unfortunately, my prediction from the first few pages was correct. My recommender got made fun of for that one. After a mental tally of everyone who has a key or knows how to break into my apartment it’s an pleasantly light read. The novel is well written with enjoyable characters and so even with the predictable outcome, it is worth the read some summer while sitting on the beach.
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