Addressed to Kill (A Postmistress Mystery #3)

Author:  Jean Flowers
Genre:  Mystery

Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN:  9780425279120
Berkley Publishing
304 Pages
$7.99; $7.99 Amazon
July 25, 2017

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Love is in the air for postmaster Cassie Miller and the residents of North Ashcot, Massachusetts.  Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and the town is gearing up for a special dinner dance at the senior center.  Since the local musical group performing at the dance has been displaced from their regular practice location, Cassie is all too happy to host them during off-hours at the post office.

But not everything is coming up roses.  When one of the musicians, Dennis Somerville, is found shot in his home, rumors swirl over who might have wanted him dead.  Cassie must determine if there is a link between a string of recent break-ins and Dennis's murder before another victim winds up with more than a broken heart.

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As the third book in the Postmistress series, I really wanted to like it better than the first two.  But there are so many things wrong with this book, beginning with buildings changing locations and growing larger.  That's right - growing larger.  In the last book, the drawings showed the post office, then buildings 1201 Main and 1203 Main on the corner facing the bank.  In this book, it's 1203 Main, 1201 Main, and a much larger post office (now transposed to the corner and facing the bank) - attached to a community center that didn't exist before.  Maybe others don't pay attention to details, but I do.  And these details most certainly weren't in the previous book.  You can't just change locations of buildings and make them larger on a whim.  Not to mention I've never heard of a post office having a community center.  That's just odd.

Secondly, supposedly there are three thousand people in the town of North Ashcot, but only one postal employee.  They don't deliver mail, and we're supposed to believe that everyone goes to the post office to get it.  Even if half are children, that's a lot of post boxes they'd need.  This post office must be the biggest in the country to accommodate that many.  Plus, can you imagine the lines of people picking up/mailing packages at Christmas?  In fact, she wouldn't have time to investigate murders.  She'd spend all her time sorting mail and putting it in the boxes.  I check my mail every day, as do most people.  I thought this was a town of about 100 people up until now.  Now I understand some towns don't do home delivery - but with this many people you'd have to have more than one person and keep the post office open a lot longer to accommodate those that work during the day, not to mention disabled people would need their mail delivered.  Also, when does she sort the mail?  Is it done by elves in the middle of the night?  Because Cassie never mentions sorting, yet with all these people, that would take a lot of time.  So, a town this size, with everyone coming into the post office every day to get their mail would take up an awful lot of time - and again, need more than ONE employee to do so.

When a professor is murdered Cassie blames herself because he wanted her to investigate threatening letters (which he should have taken to the police department if he thought his life was threatened) so nosy Cassie needs to investigate - again.  While Cassie's in the perfect job for her, since she thinks post offices are fascinating, they're not.  I really tried to like it, but sorry, I am so done with this series.

https://www.amazon.com/Addressed-Kill-Postmistress-Mystery-Flowers/dp/042527912X/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2214323005

More on Jean Flowers's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/f/jean-flowers/

Death Takes Priority (A Postmistress Mystery)

Author:  Jean Flowers
Genre:  Mystery

Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9780425279106
Berkley Publishing
304 Pages
$7.99; $2.99 Amazon
November 3, 2015

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After caring for her dying aunt and being dumped by her fiancé, Cassie Miller decides to return to her small hometown in the Berkshires to lick her wounds and live in the house where she was raised.  Leaving behind her managerial position in the Boston main post office, Cassie trades in her tailored suits and high heels for the comfortable blue shirt and red-white-and-blue striped scarf of the postmaster for North Ashcot, Massachusetts.

Everything is business as usual until Cassie arrives at work one day to find that someone has broken into the post office building.  the only items stolen: stacks of telephone books.  Who steals phone books?  And when the body of an unidentified man is found in the woods and the handsome antiques dealer she just had lunch with is taken into custody, Cassie is suddenly drawn into the case.  With a crime enveloped in mystery, she needs to track the killer - before another victim's fate is sealed in the dead letter office...

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Cassie Miller used to work for the postal service in Boston, but when her aunt got sick and her boyfriend dumped her, she ran home to North Ashcot, Massachusetts.  She took over the office of Postmaster and has been home for three months, trying to find her way again with people she's known and some she hasn't.

When she accepts a lunch date from a local antiques dealer, Scott James, she doesn't know that it's going to end abruptly, with Scott taken in for questioning - it seems someone from Cassie's past has been found murdered, and he had two names in his possession - Scott's and Quinn Martindale's.  It also comes as a surprise that Scott and Quinn turn out to be the same person.

When she discovers the identity of the dead man - someone she went to prom with - his sister Wanda asks her to investigate, because Wanda thinks the police are blowing her off about possible reasons why her brother was murdered.  While Cassie tries to stay out of the investigation, it appears people think she already is in.  She's questioned by people who visit the post office, and and once she discovers her tires have been slashed - all four of them - it's apparent someone who knows what's going on thinks so, too...

I liked this book up to a point.  I liked the fact that our protagonist is a postmaster, but I really didn't care to hear about all her duties; it was beginning to get old.  We all know that postal employees have to sort mail, deliver it, fill the various bins, etc.  I'm pretty sure no one believes it's done by elves in the middle of the night.  Anyhow...I found it distracting as much as I would have if I'd been reading about a florist who continually told us how she orders flowers, cuts them, arranges them, etc. 

The plot itself was decent enough, but never really seemed to come together for me.  There just didn't seem to be any real reason why the person who was actually "organizing everything" would think Cassie could be a serious threat.  She knew very little, and honestly didn't know how to ask questions without people catching on.  It just seemed off to me.

While I understand this is the first in a new series, I also understand that it takes time to hone the same, so I hope that the next book brings a little more polish, and I plan to give this author another chance to do so.

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Takes-Priority-Postmistress-Mystery/dp/0425279103/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2206437441

More on Jean Flowers's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/f/jean-flowers/