Halloween – Page 2 – Carol's Notebook

I love seasonal novella collections! Haunted House Murder contains three cozy mystery novellas. Each is part of series, but they all worked well as stand-alones for me. Out of the three, the only one I really enjoyed was Hallowed Out by Barbara Ross. Haunted House Murder, the first in the book, was lacking in a real plot. New people move into town, they're weird, let's all judge them. The amount of time Lucy spent complaining about having to take care of her grandson was annoying and I don't understand why her husband seemed to be incapable of helping at all. The mystery itself wasn't really much of a mystery, just people jumping to conclusions with little to no actual evidence. In Death By Haunted House, new people move into town, they're weird, let's all judge them. And guess, what? They haven't killed anyone either. Sorry, that was a spoiler but not a surprising one. At least this time, there actually was...

Yes, I'm reading too many Agatha Christie's lately. No, I don't care. It's October and Hallowe'en Party was "available now" at the library, so I picked it up. This time Hercule Poirot is called to the case by an old friend, Ariadne Oliver. Ariadne is staying with a friend in Woodleigh Common and was at a Halloween party where a thirteen year-old girl, Joyce, was murdered. Ariadne is a famous mystery author and Joyce had been trying to impress her earlier in the day by telling her that she had witnessed a murder. The theory then is that the girl was killed by the person who she saw kill someone years earlier. We get to meet a bunch of the villagers and a couple of the older kids. I think the killer in this one was a little easy to guess, even if the motive was a little wonky. The kids make it a little tough, telling lies, being gullible, thinking they are more mature than they...

Tag: Halloween

Haunted House Murder by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Barbara Ross

Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie