Author: Amy Lillard
Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781492687771
Poisoned Pen Press
320 Pages
$7.99; $6.15 Amazon
October 29, 2019
⭐⭐⭐⭐
When the elderly ladies of Arlo's Friday Night Book Club start to investigate, Arlo has no choice but to follow behind to keep them out of trouble. Yet with Wally's reputation, the suspect list only grows longer -- his betrayed wife, his disgruntled assistant, even the local man who holds a grudge from a long-ago accident.
Between running interference with the book club and otherwise keeping it all together, Arlo anxiously works to get Chloe out of jail. And amidst it all, her one-time boyfriend-turned-private-eye returns to town, just another distraction while she digs to uncover the truth around Wally's death and just what Sugar Springs secret could have led to his murder.
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Arlo Stanley moved to Sugar Springs, Mississippi when she was a teenager, tired of having moved around the country with her hippie family. The woman who became her guardian still watches over her, running the inn that Arlo once called home. She, along with two other elderly women in the community, make up the Friday Night Book Club, held at Arlo's bookshop. Arlo and her best friend Chloe opened the bookshop and coffee bar two years ago, and are doing their best to stay in the black.
Their best option for that is the fact that a school alumni named Wally Harrison is returning to town for the class reunion, having become a successful author. He's due to do a book signing at their store the following Sunday. But unfortunately, it's not going to happen. Wally's body is found out side the store, and it's at first suspected he committed suicide. But when all things point to a homicide, Chloe is arrested for the crime and now Arlo and her book club ladies are determined to find out who killed Wally. In a surprise move, Arlo's other ex-boyfriend (the first being police chief Mads), has returned to town as a private investigator, and the ladies enlist his help (even though Arlo protests). Now Arlo has to find a killer -- not knowing whether it's his wife, his assistant, or one of the locals who knew him -- and try to keep her personal life just the way it is. If only things were that easy...
This is the first book in this series, and I have not read this author before, so I really didn't know what to expect. To tell the truth, I did think the book started out slow, and there were a couple of times I put it down in the beginning to do other things, which isn't how I like to read books. I usually read them in one sitting. But I pressed on, and as I did, the book became more interesting. Maybe it was all the background on everyone, which I know that we need to have, but I have never had the patience for it, preferring to learn a little at a time, but then, that's one me, not the author.
At any rate, I do like the setting of the book -- a small town in Mississippi, and the fact that Arlo didn't lose her job in a big city and come running home penniless or from a bad relationship. Her relationship problems were much more than that, and I look forward to seeing how she deals with them in the future. Most people are broken; it's how we learn. But what you do to move forward is your own choice.
Then there's the mystery itself, which is written very well. While Chloe sits in jail, catered to by the local women (it's complicated but worth reading), Arlo is gathering clues (that she does turn over to Mads, which I like); but when he doesn't listen to her most of the time, she works to find the truth of Wally's death.
While Arlo is never in great danger, it is no big deal, as she puts the pieces together one by one and when she comes to the conclusion of who the killer is, it's a very interesting one as we watch the pieces fall into place. I did like this book quite a bit and I will be reading the second in the series to watch how things progress in Arlo's life. Recommended.
More on Amy Lillard's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/amy-lillard/
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