Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780451235510
Berkley Publishing
320 Pages
$7.99; $2.99 Amazon
January 3, 2012
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Hayley Snow is a woman of many passions. She's followed her soul mater to funky, foodie Key West, but when their romance loses its sizzle, she's determined to find a new life in this island paradise. She's always been a foodie, so when she applies to be a food critic for Key Zest, the new Key West style magazine, it seems like a perfect pairing. Then Hayley discovers her potential new boss is Kristen Faulkner - the woman who stole her boyfriend.
Hayley can't see how things can get worse now that she's loveless, possibly working for her romantic rival, and living on her friend's boat - until Kristen is murdered and the police pull Hayley in as a suspect. Unfortunately, Hayley's got more motive than Key Lime pie has meringue. To clear her name she'll have to find the real killer fast or the only restaurant she'll be reviewing is the prison café.
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Hayley Snow made the mistake of following a man she barely knew, Chad Lutz - yet thought she was in love with - to Key West, Florida. Weeks after moving in, she caught him in bed with Kristin Faulker and Chad promptly threw her things out on the street. Now she's living in a tiny room on a houseboat with her friend Connie, without a job and working part time for Connie in return for free rent.
What she really wants to do is get the job as food critic for a magazine called Key Zest, but the downside is Hayley discovered that she'd be working for Kristin. She's out one evening with her friend Eric when she sees Chad and Kristin dining at the same restaurant and decides to ask her about the job. It's not long after that confrontation when police arrive at the boat and take her down to the station for questioning.
It seems Kristin is dead - murdered - and they want to know just how well Hayley knew her and what she knows about the crime. Hayley tries to convince them she'd only seen Kristin twice in her life, but whether they believe her or not is yet to be seen. Then she discovers that it was probably Chad who told the police she murdered Kristin, and now it's all she can do to stay out of jail and try and find the killer, since it's obvious to everyone that they're trying to pin it on her...
This seemed like it might be a nice book to read since it's about a wannabe food critic who's accused of murder. But there were several things wrong with it, and I just couldn't get past them:
First, I don't understand why the police kept insisting she must have killed Kristin. Yes, I get that she lived with Chad, and I get that Kristin broke up the relationship. But a few conversations with Chad and he'd have to 'fess up where he met Hayley, how he asked her to move to Key West, and how he broke up with her. He'd also have to tell them the truth about how long Hayley knew Kristin and that Kristin had made no statements about Hayley stalking her. Once they discovered that she was telling the truth, then they'd have to look elsewhere.
After all, there are many women who find out their boyfriends have cheated on them and they don't murder the new girlfriend, especially if the old one doesn't have a history of violence - and all they'd have to do is check to see that Hayley had no history of violence. Look elsewhere, incompetent officers!
Then they were surprised that the knife used in the murder had her prints on it...a knife that she bought, and had when she lived with Chad. That's not enough reason to convict her of the crime. They'd need more evidence than an item that had her prints on it if she lived there. Especially - and I won't name the method of murder here - since the knife wasn't the method of murder since the victim wasn't stabbed.
Also, since the secretary said that Kristin didn't live with Chad, why weren't the police investigating who wanted to kill him? I assume they spoke with his secretary, right? And even if Chad didn't give them that information, she would have. The police were determined that Hayley was guilty, and never even questioned anyone else. What police department does that unless they have concrete evidence - which they didn't.
I also didn't understand (and this is a spoiler) why Chad never got any comeuppance for being such a jerk. He treated Hayley like garbage - even though he recently cared enough about her to move her in with him; he believed her capable of murder, but again, moved her in with him. He also knew she had a cat before she moved to Key West, so he had no reason to act like a jerk over that; he didn't even lose clients over his behavior; it never became known. I also didn't get why he thought she was guilty when she never exhibited that type of behavior - ever.
Then I also wondered where she was getting the cash to afford the Tarot readings, buy all her meals, buy food for her friends, etc., since she didn't have a job; Hayley was spending money like water. Were her parents supporting her? Are they rich? And since her friend Eric is a psychiatrist, I imagine he knows other professional people, but didn't help Hayley by putting feelers out to see if anyone needed help? I really didn't like Connie at all; she didn't act like a true friend would instead spending all her time with her boyfriend...sort of like a teenager would do.
Plus I really didn't care for what happened to Evinrude (no, the cat doesn't get killed) but he did disappear, and I was wondering where he had gone and if he had been stolen or injured, so that tempered my enjoyment quite a bit since I kept waiting for him to show up. Animal lovers don't appreciate when there's an intimation that a cat's been injured or stolen and we don't get to find them right away. It really tempers enjoyment of the book.
But what got me big time was the fact that the detective treats her like a criminal throughout the book and there's no indication at all that there's even a spark between him and Hayley and then at the end of the book he asks her for a date? And she just forgives him right away? Really? He wasn't even trying to be nice or give her the benefit of the doubt. I'd tell him to take a hike, since he also believed she was guilty. Maybe if he'd said something like, "I don't think you're guilty, Hayley, but the evidence shows...and unless we find something to the contrary we have to go where the evidence takes us..." but he didn't. Not even once.
Unfortunately, with all these problems it was difficult to really like the book. Hayley herself even made it hard, since she acted more like a teenager throughout instead of a grown woman. She spent a lot of time wallowing in self-pity instead of trying to get her life together.
When the killer was revealed at the end it really wasn't that hard to figure out since there weren't a lot of choices throughout the book who it could have been; but I honestly didn't blame them one bit and felt rather sorry for them; there's no reason for anyone to be put in that exact same situation, and it showed how some people are just taking up space instead of trying to be fair. I will read the next in the series in the hopes that it will improve.
https://www.amazon.com/Appetite-Murder-West-Critic-Mystery/dp/0451235517/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2444411559
More on Lucy Burdette's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/lucy-burdette/
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