Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Audio CD; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496720191; 9781977365217
Kensington Publishing
286 Pages
$7.99; $16.50; $5.99 Amazon
October 30, 2018
⭐
Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library - she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn't expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town...
Addie left some painful memories behind in the big city, including the unsolved murder of her fiancé and her father's fatal car accident. After an unexpected inheritance from a great aunt, she's moved to a small New England town founded by her ancestors back in colonial times - and living in spacious Greyborne Manor, on a hilltop overlooking the harbor. Best of all, her aunt also left her countless first editions and other treasures - providing an inventory to start her own store.
But there's trouble from day one, and not just from the grumpy woman who runs the bakery next door. A car nearly runs Addie down. Someone steals a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Then, Addie's friend Serena, who owns a nearby tea shop, is arrested - for killing another local merchant. The police seem pretty sure they've got the story in hand, but Addie's not going to let them close the book on this case without a fight...
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Addie Greyborne moves from Boston to a small town after a couple of tragedies in her life. First, her fiancé David is murdered, then her father has a fatal car accident, and she believes it wasn't really an accident. It seems fortuitous when she receives an inheritance from a recently deceased relative and is given the means to move away.
After finding many rare editions and used books in the Victorian home she's inherited, she decides to open a bookstore. But on her first day, her back door has nearly been forced open, someone has taken a copy of Alice in Wonderland (non-valuable), there's a car following her, she's nearly run down, and someone breaks into her home. The 'accidents' don't stop, either. Her keys go missing, a car is parking in her driveway at night...well, you get the idea. She's also met two of her new business neighbors, one doesn't like her and the other, Serena, takes to her immediately.
It seems someone in this town wants her gone, and even if the police don't take it seriously (they think it's just "coincidences"), she knows it's true. It doesn't help when Serena is arrested for murder, and Addie knows her new friend couldn't be guilty so is determined to find the killer. But with someone obviously out to get her, will she have time to prove Serena's innocence?
I really wanted to like this book because I thought the premise sounded good. But it's never good if you fall asleep out of boredom while reading...during the middle of the day. Yeah. It's unfortunate, but there it is.
First, I don't understand why the police couldn't put two and two together about David and her father. One murdered and another has a fatal accident a short time later? Her father was run off the road. There would be indications he didn't leave the roadway voluntarily, and the police should have noticed that right away. But they didn't. Then, her business and her home is vandalized, and there's a car watching her every move. The police should have found this odd. But they didn't.
Then, when Serena was arrested, Marc, the chief of police, should have turned the case over to someone else, because he was her brother. But he didn't. Addie had a rich relative in a town named after her family, and she should have known something about her heritage. But she didn't. It seems to me there are an awful lot of "didn't's" in this story.
Also, why didn't (there's that word again) Addie know any of the other business owners? She never went and introduced herself? She also didn't spend any time at her business, so how did she stay open? She was always off doing something else. I also thought Addie was unlikable. With all the tragedy in her life, she acted like she wasn't grieving at all. It had been a short time and she was just going to move on with her life, even be ready for a new romance. This didn't ring true.
When Addie explains to Marc how Blain must have died, and that Serena couldn't have committed the murder, it makes sense. So I have to wonder - again - why the DA's office and the investigating officers couldn't have figured this out and realized that Serena must have been telling the truth. No DA's office worth their salt would have prosecuted her if the defending attorney could show how ridiculous it looks in a court of law (and, after reading it, it does sound ridiculous).
Honestly, I got as far as the petition to revoke her business license because 'she brought crime with her' and threw up my hands. What kind of morons live in this town? Not even the criminals were very smart - they couldn't find what they'd been looking for, but Addie found it almost immediately after thinking about it for a few minutes.
In the end, I feel I need to say it: 1) if you see someone looking at where you put the keys to your shop, don't leave them there again. 2) if someone is breaking into your home/business, get the locks changed. Now. Install a security system. Today. 3) Keep your phone charged - if you can see a car, you can probably take a picture of it to show the police. Shouldn't someone from the "Big City" have more common sense than this? She sure didn't.
All in all, this isn't a series I will be seeking out again. Unfortunately I read it. I wish I didn't.
https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Bookstore-Mystery-Lauren-Elliott/dp/1496720199/ref
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2871841582
More on Lauren Elliott's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/e/lauren-elliott/
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