A charming debut featuring a middling mystery, a captivating cast, and many spells of laugh-out-loud humor.
A Michigan widow with a strong sense of justice solves a series of crimes.
Famously frugal Isabel Puddles has lived in her family’s Gull Harbor lakeside home for most of her life and intends to die there. Now that her children are grown and gone, she struggles to pay for the extras in life, including taxes, in an area of summer homes owned primarily by wealthy outsiders. To keep up, she sells her popular pickles and pies, works at her cousin’s hardware store, and reluctantly accepts a hairdressing job at a funeral home. That’s how she discovers a nail in the head of wealthy farmer Earl Jonasson. Isabel’s call to her cousin Ginny, who’s engaged to sheriff Grady Pemberton, kicks off an investigation that leads to the arrest of Earl’s son, whose girlfriend, Tammy Trudlow, is more of a fighter than a lover, according to Isabel. Earl Jr. isn’t the brightest bulb, and his sister, Meg, is furious that anyone would think he could kill his father—a judgment Isabel shares, although her loudmouthed bestie, Frances Spitler, voices an alternative opinion to a reporter. Although Isabel thinks Tammy had something to do with the death, Grady ignores her, forcing her to use her wide network to dig up clues that will prove her right. Her decision to take in Earl’s lonely dog, Corky, as a companion for her dearly loved Jackpot leads to a breathtaking denouement.
A charming debut featuring a middling mystery, a captivating cast, and many spells of laugh-out-loud humor.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2831-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.
An aspiring mystery writer sets out to solve her great-aunt’s murder and inherit an estate.
Twenty-five-year-old Annie Adams has never met her great-aunt Frances, who prefers her small village to busy London. But when a mysterious letter arrives instructing Annie to come to Castle Knoll in Dorset to meet Frances and discuss her role as sole beneficiary of her great-aunt’s estate, Annie can’t resist. Unfortunately, she arrives to find Frances’ worst fears have come true: The elderly woman—who’s been haunted for decades by a fortuneteller’s prediction that this will happen—has been murdered, and her will dictates that she will leave her entire estate to Annie, but only if Annie solves her killing. It’s a cheeky if not exactly believable premise, especially since the local police don’t seem terribly opposed to it. Annie herself is an engaging presence, if a little too blind to the fact that she could be on the killer’s to-do list. Her roll call of suspects is pleasingly long, including but not limited to the local vicar, a one-time paramour of her great-aunt’s; a gardener who grows a lot more than flowers; shady developers and suspicious friends from Frances’ past; and Saxon, Annie’s crafty rival, who inherits the estate himself if he manages to solve the case first. Annie pieces together clues through readings of Frances’ journal, but the story eventually runs aground on the twin rocks of too much explanation and a flimsy climax. Cute dialogue gives way to lengthy exposition, and by the time Frances’ killer is revealed you may well be ready to leave Annie, Dorset, and Castle Knoll behind for the firmer ground of reality. Fans of cozy mysteries are likely to be more forgiving, but if you cast a skeptical eye toward amateur sleuths, this novel won’t change your mind about them.
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593474013
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
A little humor, a little romance, a little detection, but no solid takeaway.
Murder disrupts a bookstore’s grand opening in Winthrop, Washington.
Tess Harrow is going all out for the launch of Paper Trail, the painstakingly renovated bookshop on the site of her father’s old hardware store. Not only has she scheduled her latest novel, Fury Under the Floorboards, for release the night of the store’s launch party, but she’s allowed her daughter, 15-year-old Gertie, to plan a menu of tasty treats, including sushi-grade tuna flown in fresh that morning from Seattle. So she’s less than thrilled when her mother, mega-diva Bernadette Springer, shows up even earlier than the fish with her boyfriend, Levi Parker, in tow. Parker is famous all over Instagram, accused of murdering two women in New York and one in Detroit, although no one’s been able to make the charges stick. But this time, he’s the one who ends up in the morgue. Relieved as Tess is that her mother won’t be Parker’s next victim, his death derails the plans for her gala reopening big-time. First, journalist Mumford Umberto ditches his plans for an extended interview with Tess in favor of covering the crime. Next, podcaster Neptune Jones sets up shop down the street, drawing away the huge crowds that Tess expected at Paper Trail. Worst of all, Sheriff Boyd, who Tess keeps hoping will declare his feelings for her, invites Neptune to stay at his house and help him crack the case. Tess spends so much energy grieving the injustice of it all that she barely has time to solve the mystery, even when it looks as if her mom is a prime suspect. Although Berry’s dialogue is crisp and funny, her scattershot plotting may leave some readers wishing for a bit less.
A little humor, a little romance, a little detection, but no solid takeaway.Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781728248660
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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