I’m going to finish that phrase with “not compelling.”

I started a new series by J. J. Marsh called the DI Beatrice Stubbs mysteries, and although the first book, Behind Closed Doors, has much to recommend it, I found myself reacting somewhat tepidly to its charms. There were three books on offer at a discount as a boxed e-book set (with another three-book set if you liked these), and the description—a team of Interpol agents led by a detective inspector from Scotland Yard, trying to solve a bunch of murders camouflaged as suicides—sounded intriguing.

The tip-offs that they were not suicides were two, the first being that DNA from the same individual was found at all the death sites, and the second that these were all singularly unpleasant characters, responsible between them for a lot of dirty dealing and corruption in the world. Obviously, the team feels, someone has targeted them for elimination and has gone to great lengths to do so both thoroughly and cleverly—and also what would have been undetectably save for the DNA. The conclusion is ultimately drawn that the DNA is purposefully planted to give a hint that these were, indeed, diabolically successful revenge killings.

The set-up sounds wonderful: The killings take place across Europe, mostly at glamorous and diverse locations (a luxury hotel, a ski run, a dam) and by creative methods (freezing, asphixiation, beheading). Because the victims are villains, mostly from the world of international finance, no one seems to excessively regret their deaths.

The team of investigators is what should be an interesting crew made up of three women and three men of various ranks and nationalities from several countries and organizations, brought together to definitively determine whether those who initially dealt with the deaths are right to be suspicious. There is a thinly disguised villainess who is either personally or professionally connected to all of the victims, but against whom nothing has been proven. The home base of the team is Zurich, with side trips to all the destinations where the killings took place, and there is a lot of name-dropping of cities and their tourist attractions—museums, opera houses, parks, resorts—to give everything an air of glamour. And yet…

I had a lot of trouble investing in anyone in this book. The main character, Detective Inspector Beatrice Stubbs, is supposed to be the primary driver of the action and thus, presumably, the sympathetic character, and she is nicely rendered as a person of brilliance who has just come back to work after a period of instability during which she may have attempted suicide herself. She is not painted as a tragic figure, though; she has a stable home life with a supportive partner, is committed to regular visits with her therapist, and has a boss who wants her to succeed and has her back. She’s a little older and a bit less fashionable than the other women on the team, which gives her both authority and vulnerability, and she has moments of both darkness and joy in the course of her days.

Other than her, however, I found the members of the team to be opaque. Each of them has a quirk or two that is played up in the course of their interactions, but you never really get to know the people behind those quirks. There’s just not enough detail provided to make you care about them one way or another and, in some cases, the element of personality chosen for them is actively irritating, making you not want to know them.

Similarly, the way the victims are described is probably accurate; since they are all from a certain class of wealthy, ruthless men, one might assume that they would each be likely to fall prey to flattery and deceit by the young women who set out to entrap them— but after a while the stereotypical behavior verges on misandry and becomes both unpleasant and repetitive.

When she’s not writing, J. J. Marsh works as a language trainer in four languages, so her prose is mostly fluid and descriptive. But despite all of this (and high praise from some readers), I found this book to be only okay, and probably won’t read the next two. Another near miss for my reading preferences.