Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Curses, Boiled Again

Title: Curses, Boiled Again
Author: Shari Randall
Published: January 30th 2018 by St. Martin's Paperbacks
Format: eBook, Paperback, 320 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: A Lobster Shack Mystery #1

Finally, a cozy mystery that did not have a woman fawning over a man on every other page. A book that did not make the police look inept and a twisty plot, that might have been obvious from the beginning, unwind with enough side story and open ends to make a reader want to pick up the next book in this series.

While recovering from an ankle injury and with her dance career in the balance, Allegra “Allie” Larkin has moved back to Mystic Bay on the Micasset River to help her Aunt Gully at the Lazy Mermaid. Aunt Gully has always wanted to open a lobster shack and her wishes have grown two-fold when she was asked to participate in the YUM Networks Mystic Bay Food Festival Best Lobster Roll contest.

Strange goings on begin with harassing letters and posters from the so-called “Lobster Liberation Group” and end with the poisoning death of one of the celebrity judge. With Aunt Gully being the last to leave the prep area before the rolls were presented, conclusions are jumped to and now it is up to Allie and her sister Lorel to clear Gully’s name and get the Lazy Mermaid’s doors open again before further assumptions are made.

It seems that everyone, except Aunt Gully, had a secret. Since a single storyline was not going to work here, Shari Randall does her best to add side stories and enough characters to sidetrack the reader. There were a couple of lines midway into the book that solved the poisoning, so from there on, the reader could enjoy all the shenanigans that the rest of the characters provided.

Curiously, not all of the twists had a tidy ending and with fingers crossed, Shari Randall will be addressing them in subsequent books.

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