Have Yourself a Beary Little Murder (Teddy Bear Mystery Book 3)

Author:  Meg Macy
Genre:   Mystery

Trade Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781496722652
Kensington Publishing
304 Pages
$15.95; $9.99 Amazon
September 24, 2019

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Sasha and her sister Maddie are thrilled that the Silver Bear Shop and Factory has won the Teddy Bear Keepsake Contest, which means they get to produce a holiday specialty toy, a wizard bear named "Beary Potter."  Promising to be just as magical is Silver Hollow's annual tree-lighting ceremony and village parade.  Only one hitch:  the parade's mascot, Santa Bear - played by Mayor Cal Bloom - is missing.

After a frantic search among the floats, Bloom is found dead.  When the outfit is removed, it's clear the mayor's been electrocuted.  Who zapped hizzoner and then stuffed him into his Santa Bear suit?  While the police investigate the grisly crime, Sasha attempts to track down the murderer herself, with some help from the Guilty Pleasures Gossip Club.  Can they wrap up this case in time for Christmas - or will Sasha meet her own shocking end?

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Sasha's mother is frantic.  As organizer of the local Christmas parade, she can't locate Santa Bear, played by Mayor Cal Bloom.  He was talking with them awhile ago, but no one has seen him.  When Sasha's ex-husband Flynn suggests that Cal likes his liquor and might be behind a local factory, they find him on a bench, apparently asleep.  But when they remove the head of Santa Bear, he's most definitely not asleep.  And when the hands are removed, they can see that he's been electrocuted.

Now Sasha's mother wants her to find a killer, since she's convinced that Allison Bloom couldn't, nor wouldn't, murder her husband.  But with a new homicide detective in town, and her boyfriend Jay telling her to leave it alone, Sasha decides that if she's discreet enough, she might find the truth.  But will the truth lead her to a killer, or lead the killer to her?...

I really wanted to like this story since I enjoyed the first two so much.  But there were inconsistencies and things that were just wrong bothered me this time around.  So please DO NOT read any further until you have already read the book!

First, Flynn and his fianceé Cheryl Cummings, a local newscaster, are with Sasha's mother when she finds the body.  Cheryl immediately starts photographing the dead man on her phone until Sasha tells her that the police wouldn't appreciate it.  Then Flynn and Cheryl leave instead of waiting around as witnesses.  Which they shouldn't have done, and Flynn, as an attorney, should know that.  I don't care that he was once considered a murder suspect, he should have waited.

Then, not too long after, Sasha sees Cheryl and a news crew.  The widow and family haven't even had time to be notified and she's already putting it on television?  Without the okay of the police?  And pointing Sasha out to reporters?  Sorry, but she should have been fired for that.  A murder under investigation and she's telling reporters to badger a witness?  This is unacceptable.

Then Officer Digger Sykes walks over and talks about the mayor’s death in front of people, which I can’t imagine any officer doing no matter what the reason.  He shouldn't be a police officer if he's going to allow his personal feelings to get in the way of him doing his job.

Cats aren't dogs.  If a cat is leaving "presents" it's not angry, but anxious.  They want to be with you but can't, so will find something that smells like you and merge the scents...and they only do this if you've been gone awhile - not if you've been gone less than a day.  I've been gone for five days at a time, and my cats have plenty of food and water, and never once left me a 'present.'  So Maddie is obviously not a very good 'cat mommy'.  Does she ever play or spend time with Nyxie?  That might be part of the problem.

Justifying her mother's behavior by saying she thought she probably needed to "feel appreciated by someone other than her husband and family" indicates that if her mother did have an affair, she'd be okay with it.  Seriously?  What kind of person who loves their husband and children needs to seek attention from another man?  I can't see how this is acceptable.  If your spouse looks elsewhere and you excuse it by saying they needed to 'feel appreciated' then your marriage isn't that great to begin with.  I have enough self-esteem where I don't go begging people to like me.  Nothing good ever comes from going down that road.

Also, when Sasha found out the detective was involved with someone close to the case, why didn't she immediately go to the Chief of Police and have him removed?  That should have been the very first thing she should have done - and told him that Flynn was the one who informed her.  (Her ex-husband is an unlikable snot so it would have served him right).

I felt there were just too many characters to keep track of.  In a mystery, you'd like a finite number so you could keep track of them, but in this book there were at least 100 different people.  Who can decide who's a murderer with that amount?  Why were they all there?  Did the author not want to use the same character twice?  I was also wondering why Sasha kept using their first and last names, especially since only two characters had the same first name.

Is there a special reason why all these characters had to be identified by first and last names?  Why did we need to know the first and last name of the server?  When a waitress brings you food, do you say, "thanks, Janet Johnson?"  Wouldn't it be easier (on the readers) if you just said 'the server brought our food,' especially if said server had nothing at all to do with the murder or the victim?  Although there would have been less pages, we didn't need to hear everyone's first and last name every time they were mentioned.  We only really needed the names of the victim, suspects, police officers, and those truly involved in the case one way or another - we certainly didn't need the names of characters Sasha only interacted with once (see Janet Johnson).

Who calls an employee by their first and last name?  I can't count the times she kept saying "Renee Truman."  There was only one Renee, so we knew who she was.  Reading everyone's first and last name constantly got annoying.  No one does that in real life.  (Can you imagine?  "Hello, Renee Truman.  It's about time you got here, Renee Truman.")

Then, as far as the cookie contest went, I would think getting a recipe off of Pinterest wouldn't be allowed, as it's actually someone else's recipe, not yours or a family member's.  In every baking contest I've ever seen, the recipe has to be out of those two categories.  You can't take someone else's recipe without first contacting that person and asking them and then acknowledging them in the contest - which is really them winning a prize, not you.  So that didn't make any sense.  This would be instant disqualification if people knew it was someone else's recipe.  (Lawsuit, anyone?)

I also don’t think Barbara could possibly be her mother’s best friend if she refused to allow Maddie to rent the Time Turner, or that she rented Lois’s home to someone else when she knew Sasha wanted it.  Barbara didn’t even give Sasha the courtesy of telling her she was going to do it.  How can you be friends with someone who dislikes your children that much?  I can’t think of any other possible reason she would do it.  I would have dumped her as a friend the minute she refused to rent anything to one of my kids if she didn't have a very good reason to do so - and she didn’t, or hopefully it would have been mentioned.

I really didn't see the need for involving everyone in town in the murder.  If anyone was surprised at the murderer, it's because there were so many people to keep straight.  The red herrings all pointed to only one person - Allison.  In that case, we weren’t given any clues as to who the real murderer was.

I really enjoyed the first two in this series, but this one had too many people that were needed, but the worst was how creepy it was that every family member was at Sasha's home and then just cleared out so that Sasha can, in the words of her ex, 'get a booty call'.  I'd be mortified if my family members knew that.  Some things need to be private.

Now I know that I've been going over details a lot, but I'm a pretty detail-oriented person, and I can't change that.  Nor do I want to.  I really like this author, but I had a difficult time with this book because of everything.  I didn't like the idea that every single clue was pointing toward Allison, and we weren't given the chance to investigate other characters, and I feel that this was because there were just too many of them - and a lot of them didn't even need to be there in the first place.

In the end when everything was revealed, it shows how a twisted mind can justify anything to suit them.  It was rather sad, but the story was written well, it just got bogged down by people.  Still, a pretty good mystery that got tangled in characters.

https://www.amazon.com/Yourself-Beary-Little-Murder-Mystery/dp/1496722655?

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2979737807

More on Meg Macy's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/meg-macy/