Author: Maya Corrigan
Genre: Mystery
Hardcover (LP); Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781432869274; 9781496722423
Kensington Publishing
288 Pages
$30.99; $7.99; $6.99 Amazon
August 27, 2019
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Suzette Cripps has been occupying a spare bedroom at Val's granddad's house while she takes classes in this Maryland Eastern Shore town -- but she's always seemed a little secretive and fearful, and any talk about her past is a closed book.
After winning the costume contest at the Halloween-themed bookstore party, Suzette is mowed down by a hit-and-run driver -- and Val and her grandfather start to wonder whether it was really an accident of ir someone was after Suzette. Granddad is a little distracted by his new enterprise as a ghost-buster, but as Val talks to Suzette's coworkers and fellow creative writing students, she grows more convinced that the dead woman's demons weren't imaginary -- and that she needs to rip the mask off a killer...
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Val Deniston runs the Cool Down Cafe at the local health club, and also has side jobs catering small events. When she's hired to cater a Halloween-themed party at a new bookstore, her grandfather's tenant, Suzanne Cripps, mentions how she'd like to enter. But Val doesn't expect the entrants to be at each other's throats before the contest, nor that the next morning Suzette will be mowed down by a car and die. While the chief of police think it was a mere accident, Val starts looking at Suzette's past and she's not so sure. With the help of her grandfather, Val starts digging into the suspects, and discovers that more than one person could have had a motive; but Suzette was a decent person who didn't deserve her fate, and Val is determined to see someone pay for the crime...
I have to say that when I first started reading this book, one name in particular struck out at me. Being a huge classic film fan (I own thousands of them), I was later happy to see that I wasn't the only one in the book who noticed it, and where it was from. But I will say no more on that subject, since I don't want to ruin the book for others who might not know until it's pointed out.
That being said, I really enjoyed the book. When I first started reading this series, I wasn't impressed. But I'm glad that I stuck with it, since both Val's grandfather Don and Val herself have been growing throughout the series. I am impressed at how far Don has come, and finally showing his granddaughter how much he loves and appreciates her; and that Val's bitterness toward what was her life has turned into happiness at what her life has become. These are good things in a book.
But back to the plot: after Suzanne is killed, Val and her grandfather want to know why. They start researching the people she worked with in her job as a hotel clerk, and also her co-writers in a writers' group. What Val finds is disturbing on both counts. But without any evidence, police chief Earl Yardley isn't going to go along with it, stating that it was probably an accident.
But along with that, Don has been hired to find out why things are missing from his clients' homes, and the person who owns the Title Wave bookstore, Dorothy Muir, is an old friend of Don's, but the same can't be said of her son, Bram. He doesn't like the idea of hiring a caterer, and he seems harsh and stolid. But is that because of his personality, or because he doesn't understand how small towns work? At any rate, Val is about to find out.
When it becomes apparent that there's more to Suzanne's past that leads them to the point they now are, Val figures it out eventually, and when she does, it comes to a nice conclusion that wasn't really expected. While rather sad at points, there's no reason for taking a life, and the ending leaves us looking forward to the next in the series. I really enjoyed how all the threads eventually came together, and I do like the fact that Val never puts herself in harms' way (at least intentionally); and yet she manages to get to the bottom of things. I also have to say that I'm glad the way the series is going and looking forward to reading the next one soon.
More on Maya Corrigan's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/c/maya-corrigan/
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