Mulch Ado About Murder (A Local Foods Mystery #5)

Author:  Edith Maxwell
Genre:  Mystery

Hardcover; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781496700292
Kensington Publishing
304 Pages
May 30, 2017

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It's been a hot, dry spring in Westbury, Massachusetts.  As organic farmer Cam Flaherty waits for much-needed rain, storm clouds of mystery begin to gather.  Once again, it's time to put away her sun hat and put on her sleuthing cap...

May has been anything but merry for Cam so far.  Her parents have arrived unexpectedly and her crops are in danger of withering away.  But all of that's nothing compared to the grim fate that lies in store for one of her neighbors.  Nicole Kingsbury is the proud owner of the town's new hydroponic greenhouse.  She claims the process will be 100% organic, but she uses chemicals to feed her crops.  To Cam's surprise, her mother embarrasses her by organizing a series of loud public protests against Nicole's operation.

When Nicole is found dead in a vat of hydroponic slurry - clutching another set of rosary beads - Detective Pete Pappas has a new murder to solve.  Showers may be scarce this spring, but there's no shortage of suspects, including the dead woman's embittered ex-husband, the Other Man whose affair ruined their marriage, and Cam's own mother.  Lucky for Cam, her father turns out to have a knack for sleuthing - not to mention dealing with chickens.  Will he and Cam be able to clear Mrs. Flaherty's name before the killer strikes again?

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It's springtime in Massachusetts, and organic farmer Cam Flaherty is receiving an unexpected and rare visit from her parents whom she's never had a "traditional" relationship with.  But life goes on, and Cam has duties; so she leaves her father to help out at the farm while she makes a delivery to Nicole Kingsbury, with whom she has contracted to provide her with seedlings for her hydroponic farming.

When she arrives at Nicole's, she doesn't expect to see a line of protesters condemning her operation, and she certainly doesn't expect to see her mother in the group.  Trying her best to ignore them, she enters the greenhouse and calls out to Nicole.  But it's apparently deserted so she decides to leave the flats and also text her a message stating she's done so.  But when she hits 'send' she hears the distinct ping of a cell phone, and goes to investigate.  Unfortunately, what she comes across is Nicole's body, slumped over a vat of the slurry she used to feed the plants.  Shaken, Cam calls the police.

After being questioned and released, she returns home to tell her father that her mother is also being questioned and will return later.  But since her mother Deb admits she went in to speak with Nicole, it unfortunately puts her in the area of being a suspect, and Cam isn't pleased.  She also isn't pleased that her boyfriend, Detective Pete Pappas, removes himself from the case and to make matters worse, until they figure out what happened to Nicole, he can't spend any time with her.

But as the case progresses, it turns out that it wasn't an accident but possible homicide, and Cam is convinced her mother is hiding something both from her and the police.  While she's positive her mother didn't kill Nicole, it's obvious she's not telling everything.

What makes it harder is that Cam's parents are not ones for demonstrations of affection; neither parent has ever given her the indication that they even cared much about her but even so, she loves her mother and believes in her innocence, and will do whatever it takes to keep her out of prison, even if it puts her own life in danger...

I found this book not only to be a very good mystery, but it also gives us a lot of insight into Cam's parents and her (at times) tenuous relationship with them.  When it begins it appears that her parents arriving during prime planting season is more of a hindrance and inconvenience, but as the days go on, the relationship between them changes and grows.  Regrettably, it's taken a murder to effect that change.

Cam, although strong and independent, seems unsure where her parents are concerned; it's as if she's walking on eggshells around her mother, while her bond strengthens with her father who, surprisingly, while at first seems to be a disaster at the farm eventually becomes quite a help to her.  It takes a bit more however, for her relationship with her mother to truly connect and become closer.  This, in my opinion, is the true crux of the book; not only trying to help solve a murder (even if the police don't want her help) while forging a new relationship with, and understanding her mother.  It is a delight to watch the changes between them.

As to the murder itself (and we know it must be), I found it to be quite a treat indeed to have several red herrings thrown in, only to find that my initial thoughts came full circle.  But unfortunately I can't tell you what those thoughts were, or it gives away the ending.  Ah, well...suffice it to say that around nearly every corner we have Cam trying her best to keep the farm up and running, her parents entertained properly, and search for clues whenever she gets the chance.  This is one busy woman.

When the murderer is revealed and the reason for it discovered, we understand all too well the machinations, while thinking how easy it is for some people to do evil.  This is the fifth book in the series, and is an easy read and well written.  It can be read as a stand alone, but if you haven't read any others in the series I suggest you do so, because they're all quite as fun as this one.  Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Mulch-about-Murder-Local-Mystery/dp/1496700295/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1989040958

More on Edith Maxwell's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/edith-maxwell/

The Clock Strikes Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 4)

Author:  Alice Loweecey
Genre:  Mystery, Suspense

Hardcover; Trade Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781635112184; 9781635112153
Henery Press Publishing
268 Pages
$27.52; $15.95; $4.99 Amazon
May 30, 2017

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When terrified Elaine Patrick knocks on Driscoll Investigations' door and insists her house is haunted, Giulia Driscoll's first response is "we don't handle ghosts."  When Elaine's housekeeper and crackpot filthy rich cousin descend on Giulia and demand she find out who's trying to steal sweet, fragile Elaine's family business out from under her, that's a different story.  They want DI to provide Tarot readings, ghost hunting sessions, and even an exorcism.  Ghost hunting?  There are apps for that.  Tarot readings?  Experts in the skill are right across the street.  Exorcisms?  Having a priest for a brother-in-law comes in handy.  Giulia plunges into a crash course in all things supernatural, convinced everything happening to Elaine is stagecraft.  Except when it isn't.  Giulia's about to discover a new dimension to sleuthing, if she can survive attempted murder long enough to see through the web of lies around her client.

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Giulia Driscoll doesn't know what is in store for her when a young woman basically pushes her way in to see her.  It seems that Elaine Patrick is convinced there are ghosts inhabiting her home, determined to drive her insane.  But before she can hire a skeptical Giulia, her husband Pip arrives and whisks her away.  That should be the end of it, but it isn't...

The next day she is visited by a Victorian throwback named Muriel Lockwood, who is Elaine's cousin and fills in Giulia on Elaine's history.  It seems Elaine was orphaned many years ago when her parents were brutally murdered in their home, and she has been raised alone since.  She is also the sole owner of a wildly successful internet company that sells clothing - Dahlia - and both Muriel and Elaine's housekeeper Cissy think the three members of the Board of Directors at Dahlia is behind it, trying to keep the power within their reins.

So it appears Giulia has a new client - albeit one who thinks there's ghosts to be exorcised - and her job is to discover if one or more of the board members is behind the haunting.  To this end, she sets appointments to meet with each of them separately, but after one of the meetings, she is nearly run off the road and killed, bringing her investigation to a whole new level.

 Now Giulia is determined, if only for herself, to find out the truth of the matter, even if it means learning a little of the spiritual arts.  But what Giulia wants to really know is:  Is she going to exorcise a spirit, or a killer?

First off, let me say that I love mysteries with ghosts.  But I felt that as Giulia is an ex-nun and as such, it seemed rather odd for her to embrace all the spiritual trappings she used on this case - Tarot, exorcism, EMF detectors, etc.  I would think she would have been less willing to do so because of the way she was raised, as she puts it herself - a 'cradle Catholic.'  Saying that, the mystery itself was enjoyable, and the writing is, as always, top notch.  Ms. Loweecey is a talented author with tales to tell, and an entertaining manner.  It is only that I feel in this book she is veering into territory (ghostbusters-like) that seems so out of character of the other three books.

However, the mystery was done well with unexpected twists, and enough suspects to please even the most hardened mystery reader.  It is written well enough that one doesn't even realize for quite a while that this is not your usual mystery - and when you discover why, the story is neatly finished and tied up pleasantly.  While there is no happy ending, per se for the clients, it was still quite engaging and I look forward to the next in the series.  Recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Clock-Strikes-Giulia-Driscoll-Mystery/dp/163511215X/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2064590002

More on Alice Loweecey's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/l/alice-loweecey/

Ivy Get Your Gun (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 4)

Author:  Cindy Brown
Genre:  Mystery

Hardcover; Trade Paperback; Digital Ebook
ISBN #:  9781635112108;  9781635112078
Henery Press Publishing
234 Pages
$28.06; $15.95; $4.99 Amazon

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There's a new sheriff in town -- and she can sing!  When Gold Bug Gulch's actor-gunslinger Mongo winds up shot for real, actress and part-time PI Ivy Meadows goes undercover as the ingénue in the tourist town's melodrama.  Unfortunately, she's distracted by a pack of marauding Chihuahuas, a problematic love life, auditions for Annie Get Your Gun, and a personal mission:  to show people the real Annie Oakley.  What's more, the no-good, yellow-bellied varmint who killed Mongo isn't finished with the Gulch -- or with Ivy.  Will our heroine prove she can get a man with a gun - before the killer gets her?

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Ivy Meadows, an actress and part-time PI who lives in Arizona, is hoping for the lead role in Annie Get Your Gun.  But while she's waiting, she receives a frantic call from her fellow actress and friend Marge, who wants to hire her to find Lassie, Marge's pug, who has disappeared into the desert with a pack of Chihuahuas.  Knowing the desert is dangerous for small animals, Ivy agrees.  But then Marge tells her that Arnie, her husband, has discovered he's a father, and Arnie has invested tons of money in a ghost town named Gold Bug Gulch, run by Arnie's son Nathan.

Marge is afraid Nathan is taking advantage of Arnie, and not be his son at all, and wants Ivy to go undercover in the Gulch as an actress in their little melodrama for the tourists, in order to learn more about Nathan.  How can she say no?

But on her first day, one of the town's actors is killed by a real bullet, and now Ivy wants to know if it was an accident or intentional.  While she's in the town, she not only meets interesting characters, she's in the middle of several "accidents" that all seem to be intent on closing down the Gulch.  But with a host of suspects, it won't be easy to sift through them, and if she doesn't figure it out soon, she could find herself in a role she won't be happy to play - permanently dead.

Once again, Ms. Brown has written an engaging mystery that will keep you reading right through to the end.  She peppers the book with interesting characters who may or may not be who they claim to be; interspersed with humorous situations, dangerous ones, and a new talent that Ivy - nor anyone else - knew she had.

While she's still trying to circumvent her boyfriend Matt's insistence that they tell people they're a couple, she doesn't want to lose him but realizes that with him leaving the group home her brother Cody is in, she's going to have to make a decision soon.  And no one is more shocked than herself when her father visits and she discovers a few things about him that she never knew.  To top it off, she learns more about sharpshooter Annie Oakley than the 1950 film shows, and proceeds to educate others, even incorporating it into the daily "melodrama."

With a full plate indeed - auditioning for a stage role, working in the Gulch, searching for a lost pug, investigating both Nathan and a murder - Ivy's life is nothing more than normal (for her), and it is very enjoyable indeed to watch her navigate through the pitfalls and surprises that await her around every corner, as she tries to remain unobtrusive, but manages to create havoc wherever she goes.

This is a book that is fun to read; both whimsical and, at times, suspenseful; when we discover who the murderer is, as we know we will, it comes as a surprise; and although there are a few clues scattered about, it is hidden well enough to give us plenty of red herrings to follow.  Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Ivy-Get-Your-Meadows-Mystery/dp/1635112079/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2051459900

More on Cindy Brown's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/cindy-brown/

Murder, Stage Left (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries)

Author:  Robert Goldsborough
Genre:  Mystery

Trade Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781504041119
Mysterious Press/Open Road Media
246 Pages
$14.97; $9.99 Amazon
March 7, 2017

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When a renowned theater director senses something amiss during his latest production, he calls in Nero Wolfe.  Though the corpulent genius wouldn't normally accept a job this vague, a mutual friend dangles the prospect of a very rare orchid in exchange for his services, and Wolfe can't resist.

With a mind to suss out backstage gossip, Wolfe turns to his faithful assistant, Archie Goodwin, to impersonate a journalist in order to speak to the cast.  Though Goodwin's conversations prove unfruitful, on his last day at the theater, the director is murdered in his soundproof booth, poisoned by an unseen culprit during an evening performance.  In short order, an actor whose health is failing, attempts suicide with the same poison.

Now Goodwin is a prime suspect in the director's demise, effectively sidelining him for the rest of the case, and freelance gumshoe Saul Panzer must step in to help wrangle the various members of the play - from the ingenue and the diva to the handsome movie star and the surly stage manager - so New York's smartest, and most reclusive, private detective can determine who is responsible for these dramatic deaths and clear Goodwin's name once and for all.

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When Nero Wolfe is asked to see a New York theater director at the behest of a fellow orchid lover, Lewis Hewitt, Wolfe's first response is No.  But then through Archie, his right-hand man, he is told to tell Wolfe these two words: Grammangis spectabilis.  With those two words, Wolfe has a new case on his hands, and Archie has a new assignment.

To wit:  Roy Breckenridge, the theater director in question, feels his life is being threatened, and all because of contention among his cast.  He asks Wolfe to investigate and find out which one of the cast members is causing the strife among them all; and to this end, it is decided that Archie will pose as a Canadian magazine writer who is interested in the play and its cast, for his publication.  But unfortunately for everyone involved, his charade does not go according to plan.  While posing undercover, someone murders Breckenridge while Archie is at the theater, not only ending his assignment, but effectively removing him from the case.  Therefore, Wolfe has only one option left:  Saul Panzer, whom he is sure can get to the crux of the matter and, by bringing the principals before Wolfe to interrogate, discover who the guilty party is.

With the cooperation of Mr. Hewitt, and a little help from newsman Lon Cohen, Wolfe sets to work not only to discover Mr. Breckenridge's murderer, but to do so in order to obtain what his heart desires: rare Madagascar orchids that are now in Mr. Hewitt's possession but Wolfe wishes to be his.  What follows is another masterful mystery involving the brilliant mind of Nero Wolfe, and the sharp wit of Archie Goodwin.

I cannot put into words how much I enjoy these mysteries, first started by the late Rex Stout and carried on beautifully by Robert Goldsborough; whose own voice speaks to us just the same.  He has given us another thought-provoking mystery - this time involving the New York theater and the personal egos of its members - and done so in such a lively way that it is indeed easy to get involved in the story quickly and stay there through the end.  In fact, one becomes so involved that in trying to decipher Mr. Wolfe's nuances you are never quite able to do so; and when he solves the crime (as we know he will) you are as surprised as anyone else.

This, my friends, is what a true mystery is about, and how it indeed should always be.  Nero Wolfe is one of a kind, a man with a brilliant mind who knows it to be true; who is haughty and unconcerned about the wants of others, but who values Archie and his staff, even if he does not show it.  He appreciates beauty and true friendship, all the while keeping himself aloof and unemotional  He is able to solve whatever crime is put before him effortlessly, and it is a pleasure to watch him do so.  This is a sparkling mystery full of intrigue and secrets, and I eagerly await the next in the series.  Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Stage-Left-Wolfe-Mysteries/dp/1504041119/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1867240467

More on Robert Goldsborough's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/g/robert-goldsborough/

Watching the Detectives (The Country Club Murders Book 5)

Author:  Julie Mulhern
Genre:  Mystery, Suspense

Hardcover; Trade Paperback; Audio CD; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781635112146; 9781635112115; 9781515963691
Henery Press Publishing
234 Pages
$26.35; $15.95; $24.99; $6.99 Amazon
May 23, 2017

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Ellison Russell wanted a decorator, not a corpse.  Too bad she finds Mrs. White in the Study killed with a revolver.  Things go from bad to worse when she finds Mr. White in the dining room killed with a candlestick.  With so many bodies, is it any wonder Detective Anarchy Jones' new partner considers Ellison a suspect?  With the country club gossips talking a mile a minute, an unexpected cocktail party, a visit from Aunt Sis, and a romantic decision, Ellison hardly has time to think about murder.  Unfortunately, the killer has plenty of time to think about her.

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Ellison Russell lives in a wealthy Kansas City suburb with her daughter Grace.  She's been widowed for six months, and has decided to turn her late husband's office into a study, so is looking for a decorator.  At the request of her attorney Hunter Tafft she's allowing his ex-wife Khaki White to offer a bid, even though she knows she won't hire her.  After all, she is dating Hunter, and feels it would be awkward to have his ex- (remarried) wife in her home.  When Khaki shows up, she begins making asides regarding Hunter that put Ellison on edge.  So when Ellison receives a telephone call from her housekeeper Aggie, it's a welcome respite.

It turns out Aggie's car Bess has finally died, and she needs Ellison to pick her up.  Ellison leaves Khaki to measure the room and tells her she'll be back shortly, and to just lock up behind her when she leaves.  That should be the end of her seeing Khaki...but instead it's just the end of Khaki.  When Ellison and Aggie return home, she finds her front door ajar, and Khaki in the study, shot between the eyes.  In shock, she calls Detective Anarchy Jones for help.

When Anarchy arrives, it's with his new partner Detective Peters, and he thinks everyone - including Ellison - is a suspect.  She has no idea who killed Khaki but she knows it wasn't herself or Hunter, (even if her neighbor did see a white Mercedes like Hunter's in her driveway).  As it is, she and Grace need to evacuate their home while the police check the crime scene, and if this isn't bad enough, her mother Frances - who is having a disaster in her own home - has volunteered Ellison's home as a replacement for a benefactors' party - in two days' time.

With her hands full of disasters and trying to keep everything together, she allows her mother her way and it appears the party is going just fine.  If things were bad before, they're about to get worse.  Ellison, making her way around her home greeting her guests, notices the lights are off in the dining room and turns them on only to see another dead body - this time it's Khaki's husband, and someone has done him in with one of her grandmother's candelabra.

But as she's caught up in two murders, you'd think it would be enough, but that's not all.  She has friends who are hiding secrets, and not little ones, either.  Secrets that could not only get them killed, but Ellison as well...

Julie Mulhern has done it again and given us a captivating mystery to sink our teeth into and happily devour.  Her characters are so full of life, so animated, that we are drawn to them instantly.  Even those we would rather not spend any time with, such as Frances (don't judge - Ellison doesn't want to spend time with her, either) have distinct and vibrant personalities.

We are transported back in time to the 1970s - Bell bottom pants, colorful (very) clothing, no cell phones or Internet, and ex-baseball player Joe DiMaggio was hawking Mr. Coffee on televisions all across America.  It is a world Ms. Mulhern feels comfortable in, and by extension, makes us comfortable in it, too.

What she has given us is a mystery not only with two murders; there is also something darker going on, and we find ourselves involved in situations that have no easy exit; mistakes that are made that can change the life of anyone forever.  When Ellison starts questioning her friends - those that used Khaki as a decorator - she becomes embroiled in a type of conspiracy, and one that has roots closer to her own home than she could ever have imagined.

With her life in such turmoil, she makes another decision that could change her life, and time will tell whether it was the right decision or not.  I have to wonder if it was based on being new, different, a rebellion of sorts; watching how differences collide will be interesting, to say the least.

When the ending comes, and we find out the murderer, it comes as a surprise - not the reasons why, but who the killer turned out to be.  It's a twisted sort of person who can justify things in their own mind that aren't justifiable at all.  Watching the Detectives was thoroughly entertaining, delightful to the extreme, and alternately funny and piquant; and even sometimes a little sorrowful.  Highly recommended, and I eagerly await the next in the series.

https://www.amazon.com/Watching-Detectives-Country-Club-Murders/dp/1635112117/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1930995427

More on Julie Mulhern's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/julie-mulhern/

No Charm Intended (A Cora Crafts Mystery)

Author:  Mollie Cox Bryan
Genre:  Mystery

Mass Market Paperback; Ebook
ISBN #:  9781496704665
Kensington Publishing
320 Pages
$7.99; $5.99 Amazon
April 25, 1017

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Settling into her new life and and career in small-town Indigo Gap, North Carolina, Cora Chevalier is preparing to host a “wildcrafting” retreat at her Victorian home. But a specter hangs over the venture when beloved local nanny Gracie Wyke goes missing. Amidst leading their guests in nature hikes, rock painting and making clay charms, Cora and her business partner, Jane, team up with Gracie’s boyfriend, Paul, to launch their own investigation into her disappearance when the local police prove unhelpful.

Cora and her crafters take Paul in, believing he is in danger and not the suspect police have made him out to be. However as they uncover new clues and a body turns up at a local abandoned amusement park, Cora and Jane begin to question their decision. With more questions than answers arising, is Cora crafty enough to untangle a knot that could put an innocent in jail—and permanently destroy her reputation?

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Cora Chevalier is the owner of Kildare House, an historic home in the small town of Indigo Gap, North Carolina.  She moved there after her previous life working in a women's shelter in Pittsburgh sent her into a downward spiral that she's still recovering from.  Also with her is her best friend Jane Starr, a potter whom, along with her daughter London live in the carriage house on the property. 

Cora has turned Kildare House into a place where she holds crafting retreats, and the latest is a "wildcrafting" retreat where the guests are going to learn to use nature to make beautiful items they can be proud of both creating themselves and owning (or gifting).  

But then there's a hitch:  First, Cora receives a message on her phone that reads "I kidnapped her" but discounts it at first as a prank until she finds out others received the same message.  Then Jane's babysitter, Gracie Wyke, goes missing; her boyfriend Paul and his friend Henry show up, hoping that she might have said something to Jane which will give him a clue as to her whereabouts by retracing her final steps, but no such luck.  Shortly after their visit, Henry goes missing and Cora, feeling sorry for the distraught Paul, offers to let him stay for awhile.  Even though Jane is against it, there isn't anything she can say, so she lets it go.  But not too long after, it's discovered that Henry has been murdered, and Paul becomes a suspect in the crime.

When Cora and Jane begin investigating (against the wishes of the local police) they find that all three college students were playing a computer game called The Wizard of Oz.  But this is no kids' game, and somewhere along the line it may have turned deadly.

Although I did enjoy this book more than the first one of the series, I didn't enjoy the fact that it was intimated depression is dangerous.  At one point Jane practically goes ballistic, noting that if she knew Gracie was depressed, she never would have hired her as a babysitter.  Why?  (You can recover from depression and never suffer from it again).  I also wondered why she would have told her five-year-old daughter that her babysitter had been kidnapped.  Who has that conversation with their young child?  And then repeats it in front of her, and doesn't even think she's the reason her daughter is having nightmares!  

Both women seemingly made a big deal of Gracie's depression; yet you have two deeply damaged protagonists - Cora's stress/anxiety and Jane's bad relationships leaving her with the inability to trust men - who aren't seeking therapy of their own to deal with it.  Trust me, just moving to a new town and starting over isn't going to fix their problems, or get them on the road to their own mental health recovery.

There was some nice interaction between the crafters this time out, and I enjoyed the "crossover" of characters from Ms. Bryan's other Cumberland Creek scrapbooking series, which was a lot of fun.  The book was interesting enough to keep me reading throughout the night, and it's a light, easy read with a decent plot regarding the DarkNet (it's explained a little in the book for those who don't know much about it).

In the end, I didn't feel that there was any strong motive for the antagonist to commit kidnapping/murder.  I would have liked to have had this person be a bigger part of the story so that we could have actually gotten to know a little bit about them (understand their reasoning, etc), but as it were, that seemed to be seriously lacking, in my opinion.  However, I'm not ready to give up on the characters yet; perhaps in the third book we'll see the ladies come into their own a little bit more and finally take charge of their lives.  Recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Charm-Intended-Cora-Crafts-Mystery/dp/1496704665/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2034246527

More on Mollie Cox Bryan's Books:   https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/mollie-cox-bryan/

Double Up (A Davis Way Crime Caper Book #6)

Author:  Gretchen Archer
Genre:  Mystery, Suspense

Hardcover; Trade Paperback; Audio CD; Ebook; Audiobook
ISBN #:  9781635111842; 9781635111811; 9781541453968
Henery Press
$29.90; $15.95; $17.40; $6.99 Amazon
262 Pages
March 21, 2017

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Fasten your seatbelts for non-stop action as stiff competition blows into town and the resulting turbulence threatens to take down the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.  Super Secret Spy Davis Way Cole, who lives on the twenty-ninth floor of the hotel with her CEO husband and newborn twins, takes it hard.  If the casino goes belly up, she won't be a stay-at-home mom because she won't have a home.  Not to mention her husband won't have a job.  Davis can't find a way to stop the inevitable end of Bellissimo life she loves until her ex-ex-mother-in-law shows up, unexpected and definitely uninvited.  Davis makes the best of a bad Bea Crawford situation and recruits her for a little corporate espionage work, which would've been great, had Bea not turned out to be the world's worst spy.  Ever.  Seatbacks and tray tables in their upright positions as we prepare for a bumpy ride with babies, bankruptcies, besties, and shrimp.  (Shrimp?)  Enjoy your flight.

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Davis Way Cole is the ex-Secret Super Spy for the Bellissimo Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.  'Ex' because she's retired - now taking care of two eight-month-old baby girls, Bex and Quinn - while her husband Bradley is left to run what's left of the casino.  I say this because there's a new sheriff in town:  The Blitz, which has been built right across the river from the Bellissimo, and they've not only taken the Bell's staff, but most of their customers as well.  They've become practically a ghost town on their own, and the owner, Richard Sanders (and his wife Bianca) have decamped for the lights of Las Vegas and left Bradley to salvage what he can.

Davis blames herself, because if she hadn't been so busy being pregnant and then motherhood, she believes she would have known what the Blitz was up to all along and none of this would have happened; she would have been at the top of her game and realized they were building a mega-casino instead of what she originally thought - a football stadium.  Why a stadium?  Because the person who now runs the Blitz is the grandson of the owner, Elias Johnson, and an ex-football player.

Because of this, Davis has refused to leave her lavish penthouse, and has become as reclusive as Greta Garbo.  That is, until her ex-ex-mother-in-law Bea Crawford shows up and refuses to leave.  At first Davis is horrified, but when things start going even further south, she realizes she can use Bea in her own scheme to put things right again, and that's when she turns Bea into a spy herself (sort of).  But just when Davis thinks things are starting to look up, she hasn't got a clue as to how dark they can become...

As a great fan of the series I was really looking forward to this entry, and for the most part, wasn't disappointed.  While it started out slow - it's not that interesting to follow a storyline of someone who spends all their time in an apartment with their babies - but once the plot got going - and so did Davis, it really took off (see what I did there?).

There isn't a lot I can say about the plot without giving away the crux of the story, so let it suffice to say that Davis is tired of what is going on around her and decides she's the one who needs to save the company (and her home).  She learns from Bea what is going on over at the Blitz; decides she can do something even better at the Bellissimo, and sets forth on a plan to save the resort and her husband's job in the process.   What ensues is quite humorous at times, suspenseful at others, there was even one scene between Fantasy and Davis that had me downright chuckling; plus Davis' reaction when she realizes why she's spending time with Bea is worth reading the book alone; not to mention what happens when Bea begins to take herself seriously as a spy.

In the end, it was a fun journey with an unexpected ending, and while not technically a murder mystery (although there is a murder, have no fear), it still gives you plenty to devour while you enjoy the book and wait for the next in the series to arrive.  Recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Double-Davis-Way-Crime-Caper/dp/1635111811/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2031437398

More on Gretchen Archer's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/a/gretchen-archer/