Monday, July 28, 2014

Plan Bee

Title: Plan Bee
Author: Hannah Reed
Published: January 3rd 2012 by Berkley
Format: Paperback; Pgs 286
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: Queen Bee Mystery #3

That felt longer and much more painful than it needed to be. Granted, Hannah Reed has reduced the need of one of her characters to use text speech, but the bullet points used by the main character, Story Fisher, need to be eliminated. Plus, I do not care how annoying Patti is, stop with the P.P. (Pity Party) initials in front of her name. This is the third book in the series and if the readers have followed along thus far, and do not already know how annoying she is, then this book will definitely set them straight.

The small town of Moraine, Wisconsin is in the mist of their annual Harmony Festival and Story Fisher, the owner of The Wild Clover is once again thrown into the middle of a mystery when she stumbles over a body in the cemetery only to have it disappear when she finally get Officer Sheriff Johnny Jay out to investigate.

Throughout the books, Story Fisher and Johnny Jay have been battling and now he is resorting to threats and promises of not showing up if she were to call 911 with yet another claim of dead bodies or worse. Because of Johnny’s inability to tell a crime when one is in front of him, Story with the help of Patti, set off to discover who the body was and what is going on in their small town.

Add in a pending tornado, a kleptomaniac, a mother that has undergone a personality change, a twelve year old who loves to blow things up, a lottery winner, employee’s that only show up when it is convenient, a grandmother that has driving issues, and a policeman boyfriend with his trust dog sidekick and you have a typical day in the life of Story Fisher.

There are things that I love about this series, the people, the places and the bees, but Ms. Reed has a tendency to draw things out and to repeat herself. The book is less than 300 pages and a reader should not need that much repetition to help them keep the story straight.

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