I should have enjoyed She Doesn't Have a Clue. It has so many of the elements I like - an isolated location, a closed circle of suspects, a spooky mansion, a quirky main character/ amateur sleuth. Turned out I was annoyed by it most of the time, but not quite enough to quit, probably because it was on audio. The narrator did a good job. Her pace fit the story well and she managed to keep the (too many) characters distinguished from each other. Quite honestly, she's the reason I stayed around for the reveal and the happy ending.
Kate has come to her ex-fiancé's wedding at a mansion on an island in the middle of a storm. Kate is a mystery writer and has a habit of lapsing into thinking about her characters and how they would respond to events in her life, which can be a little confusing at first. The first person she runs into is Jake, aka...
I picked up The Manatee Did It while I was on vacation on Amelia Island and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a cozy beach murder mystery that takes place on the fictional Sophia Island, which is heavily based on Amelia Island. It's always fun to be reading a book and think, "hey, I had dinner at that restaurant yesterday." It's a lovely place by the way.
Jewel Mantelle and her husband, Craig, have moved to Florida after they inherits a decrepit old mansion. Jewel is also hoping to breath some life into the marriage, but that plan is not working out so well. Jewel is making friends, including a group of women who have lunch together, but settling into a new town is difficult. It becomes more complicated when the ladies find a dead body in the water during lunch and Craig become the chief suspect. Jewel, along with her new friends, start investigating. It's not that they don't trust the police-...
Poor Holly. It's Christmastime again at Reindeer Games Christmas Tree Farm and, for the fifth December in a row, someone is killed.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. The setting is wonderful. Mistletoe, Maine sounds like such a cute place. I love how close Holly and her family and friends are. They have fun together and work together and they're people I'd like to hang out with . Holly and her husband, Sheriff Evan Gray, have a good relationship.
The plot was put together well and it moved along at a good pace. We have several potential suspects and the whodunnit wasn't overly obvious.
The book and the series are so Christmassy. From the town to the food to the way the man was killed, it just screams Christmas, which I enjoy. It would be a perfect December read. And it has several touches of Christmas magic that set it apart....
It's Chinese New Year and Lana Lee is busy managing Ho-Lee Noodle House and organizing a celebration to take place at Asian Village. The head event planner, Ian Sung, has decided there will be music, a lion dance performance and a raffle. Lana, as his second in command, is looking forward to the event but is understandably tired of Ian's nagging. And of course someone is killed during the event - one of the lion dance performers.
By now, most people assume/expect Lana to investigate, and of course she does. It's nice to see Lana back in Cleveland, even if any closeness she developed with her sister while they were in California has disappeared. I also like the way she and her boyfriend detective handle trying to solve the same murder. Lana's grown over the series and it's nice to see her coming into her own. The mystery itself was well-done. The dead woman was surrounded by messy relationships and secrets....
I was surprised by how fun this one was. Charlie is in her late 20's and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. At the beginning of the books, she is working as a clerk at a jewelry store, but that job doesn't end well. Now she's back home in Maui, living with her mother and working at an ice cream shop. Her new plan is to collect the $100,000 reward for solving the murder of a high-powered developer, whose last stop before his death was Charlie's ice cream shop.
Rosie and Dot are two senior citizens who are also looking for the murderer and when they end up chasing the same clues, they decide to team up. Jake, hot cop, is not happy when they seem to be one step ahead of him and his partner.
Charlie and her friends, including Dot and Rosie, are fun and also the type to attract trouble. The women are all intelligent,...
Sleep in Heavenly Pizza is the fourth in the Deep Dish Mystery series but the first I've read. I knew it centered around a pizza shop, obviously, but had a different kind of restaurant in my head. Delilah & Son is way fancier than our pizza places generally. Of course, I live in the land of Steubenville/ Ohio Valley pizza and my favorite pizzeria doesn't have any place to sit and eat, either inside or outside, but they do have a stack of napkins on the counter in case you want to eat in your car. They certainly wouldn't be catering the upscale Chrismukkah party the book opens with. The party winds down a bit early when the hosts' family drama gets out of hand and glassware is broken. The next day one of the guests is found dead in a pile of snow being used for a sculpture competition, and of course the guests and catering staff come under...
