Little Bookshop of Murder

Title: Little Bookshop of Murder

Author: Maggie Blackburn (aka Mollie Cox Bryan)
Published: September 8th 2020 by Crooked Lane Books
Format: eBook, Hardcover 329 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: Beach Reads Mystery #1

Repetitious, inconsistent, no diversion or secondary plotline, and most frustrating of all, it was easily solved halfway through the book. So why did I finish the book? I am asking myself the same question, and I think it boils down to hope. I kept hoping that I was wrong. I kept hoping that there was something that I missed and would zing me at the end. That didn’t happen, and all that was left was a book that needed more time with an editor and a few wasted hours.

Summer Merriweather mentions that she is a Shakespearean scholar about a gazillion times, which becomes tedious and does not help and only tends to annoy the reader and the people around her. She then must dwell on the goings-on at her Virginia University, where she is on sabbatical due to her fear of spiders (of all things) and her University’s odd response. Hiding out in England under the auspice of research, she receives a call that her mother, Hildy, otherwise healthy, had died of a sudden heart attack. Returning home to Brigid’s Island, NC, apparently instantaneously, for the funeral, Summer begins to question the death when threats appear. Threats that Hildy had been dealing with regarding the selling her beloved bookstore, Beach Reads.

Trying to fulfilling the standards when it comes to cozy mysteries, Maggie Blackburn checks all the boxes. Small town, returning home, pet, friends, past boyfriend, etc. If only there had been something new or a few clues had been hidden. This series will be a pass for me.

Funeral For A Friend

Title: Funeral For A Friend
Author: Brian Freeman
Published: September 22nd 2020 by Blackstone Publishing
Format: Hardcover, 300 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Series: Jonathan Stride #10

The first two-thirds of this book was slow and plodding. No highs or lows, just a straight line with a couple of references that you were not sure were clues or relevant information. About halfway through, I was ready to give up, but Brian Freeman had never (well, maybe Cab Bolton) disappointed me, so continue I did. At the three-quarter mark, this is where the book went from drab to fantastic. The pace picked up, the characters came together, and the usual Freeman suspense was back.

With best friend Steve Garske on his death bed, there is a confession of a buried body in the garden. Ned Bauer disappeared seven years ago after coming to town to investigate a thirty-year-old rape - an allegation that can be the end of a local Politician. But Stride being Stride, can’t let things lie, even if it means his career will be over and his ex-wife’s secrets will become public.

Now add in the next adventure of Cat Mateo, the teenager that Stride and Serena took in. Her life has become too public after an assault, but that is not going to hold her down. Unfortunately, all that unwanted attention has brought a stalker into her life. When things begin to get downright scary, Stride asks around the department if anyone wants extra work as a bodyguard. Braydon is the first to volunteer, and this is how the two storylines mesh and though a bit farfetched and too convenient, Brian Freeman takes the reader on a thrilling ride to the end.

I was concerned this was the end of Jonathan Stride since Brian Freeman mentioned previous cases and prior heartaches, but I hope there is more. The combination of Stride, Serena, Maggie, and Cat bring this series life. All four parts need to be there, as broken and damaged as they are, to make each other whole.

Track of the Cat

Title: Track of the Cat
Author: Nevada Barr
Published: 1993, G. P. Putnam's Sons
Format: Paperback, 218 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Series: Anna Pigeon #1

I’m not sure what scared me more, the idea of a big cat attack or the West Texas National Park backcountry itself. Anna Pidgeon, in her new job as a law enforcement ranger in the Guadalupe Mountains, after leaving New York in the wake of her husband’s death, has the reader a bit squeamish with the open spaces and wildlife.

Now with the death of Sheila Drury, a fellow ranger, Anna begins to question both what she sees and the stories told. The markings look like a big cat could have done it, but when and where it happened does not add up.

As deaths pile up, and an attempt on Anna’s life, she knows that she is on to something, and with the phone calls to her sister (a therapist), a new friend, and superiors who are telling her to stop digging, Anna can’t help herself. There is more there, and just when she knows where all the pieces belong, she treks out to the great beyond with one final hope of saving those set up as the prize.

Anna Pidgeon is a strong character with both the conviction and determination to right wrongs. To not fear questioning herself when she knows that she might be too close or when a bigger picture must be looked at from the right angle even if it is necessary to call her sister for clarity.

A Death in the Small Hours

Playing Nice

Title: Playing Nice
Author: J.P. Delaney
Published: July 28th 2020 by Ballantine Books
Format: Hardcover, 402 pages
Genre: Psychological Thriller

After an achingly slow start, Playing Nice didn’t get interesting until the midway point and will have left most readers wondering what had happened since JP Delaney’s previous books (Believe Me, The Girl Before, and The Perfect Wife) were “unputdownable” from the beginning.

Eternally nice guy Pete Riley and workaholic Maddie Wilson are doing their best to raise their son Theo, who was born premature and who is now displaying challenging tendencies. Tendencies that were problematic enough to have him, as a two-year-old, thrown out of preschool. That’s ok since Pete will sort it all out and get them on the right footing once he figures out why the people that were watching him from across the road at his son’s school are now on his doorstep with a fantastical tale of child swapping and lawsuits.

Pete and Maddie attempt an amicable solution with Miles Lambert – this is where the book unravels for me. Who would take a stranger’s word without researching on their own? Yet, I blindly follow along in hopes that Pete and Maggie will wake up and take the lead when a stranger is trying to lay claim to their child. But at the same time, wondering why they would show so little interest in another child that could be theirs. But struggle on I do, as I am talking to the book that I am reading.

J P Delaney has the reader bouncing all over the place as he throws each possible scenario against the wall in hopes that the reader will willingly go along as each possibility gets darker and dirtier until Pete and Maggie have no other option.

Anxious People

Title: Anxious People
Author: Fredrik Backman
Published: September 8th 2020 by Atria Books
Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
Genre: Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

I am so glad the author referenced the Sixth Sense since I feel that I need to reread the book to see what I missed. I know there are lines or reference I missed since each revelation caught me off guard. Told in a somewhat spiral way, each layer, which was slow peeled back, shows how our stories can be interrelated. And I dare anyone to not be in tears by the end.

Fredrik Backman plays on our preconceptions when through a fumbling bank robbery, eight people become friends. The reader becomes embroiled in their lives to the point that when it comes to the actual robber, the point is moot. Stories and facts become enmeshed with all the other interwoven aspects. Accounts that don’t fully come to light until the last layer is laid bare and all the players are revealed.

From an annoying realtor, to a couple looking for their next renovation project instead of having to speak to each other, to a young couple with a child on the way, to the woman obsessed with the view to a storied bridge, to a woman who desperately misses her late husband they have bonded and shared their stories full of hope and heartbreak.

Yet this is not a sad story, like all of Backman’s books, this is a look into human nature. A dark look at hope and understanding and the possibility that things can get better. How shared events, and words of wisdom, can bring together people facing the most anxious moments of their lives.

One for the Books

Title: One for the Books
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Published: September 1st 2020 by Berkley
Format: eBook, Hardcover 320 Pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: Library Lover's Mystery #11

To say that I was disappointed in this book is an understatement.

As the build-up to Briar Creek’s wedding of the year, librarian Lindsey Norris and boat captain Sully Sullivan are in a mad dash to fix broken arrangements, resulting from a mix up with the guest list. All the while still working their day jobs and attending a holiday party. Good thing they have friends to step in to take over while Lindsey and Sully are trying to find a replacement officiant since Sully’s long-time friend, who was to perform the ceremony, has been found dead and no one else in town is available.

Other than the possible suspects in the murder are friends of the bride and groom; I am still not sure why they had to go out of their way to solve the murder, complete with a James Bond type of boat chase before they could be married. Yet that is just one of the many things which seemed out of place with this book.

The last few books of this series have been off for me, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I have invested in the series from the beginning, and I hold out hope for them to get better, I don’t know why I continue to read them.