Fat cat at large (A Fat Cat Mystery Book 1)

Author:  Janet Cantrell
Genre:   Mystery

Trade Paperback - LP; Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781410478269; 9780425267424
Berkley Publishing
304 Pages
$25.99; $7.83; $2.99 Amazon
September 2, 2014

⭐

The jig is up for Chase's adorable plus-size cat, Quincy.  His new vet says "diet" - that means no more cherry cheesecake bars.  From now on he gets low-calorie kibble only.  But one taste of the stuff is all it takes to drive him in search of better things.  Quincy's escape is the last thing Chase needs after the nasty run-in she has with underhanded business rival Gabe Naughtly.

Chase tracks Quincy down in a neighbor's kitchen, where he's devouring a meatloaf, unaware of the much more serious crime he's stumbled upon.  Gabe's corpse is lying on the kitchen floor, and when Chase is discovered at the murder scene, she becomes suspect number one.  Now, with a little help from her friends - both human and feline - she'll have to catch the real killer or wind up behind bars that aren't so sweet.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Oh, my.  Here's the second book in a row that I've read that has glaring errors in it.  Glaring.  Errors.  Things that should never be, but are.

First, her name is Charity, so why on earth is her nickname Chase?  Maybe if her name was Chastity, but Char would be a better choice.  Anyway...she owns a bakery that only sells dessert bars.  That's it.  Bars.  For some odd reason, they sell out every single day.  They must be the best in town, because dessert bars are okay once in a while, but I wouldn't buy them every day.  Or bake them every day.  Enough of that...

She lives above the bakery in an apartment but brings Quincy down and shuts him in the office while she's working.  Every single day.  A little bitty office instead of leaving him upstairs where he can look out a window and sleep anywhere he wants.  Is she that lonely?  Because that's just a very cruel thing to do to a cat.  It's like taking him up to the apartment and shutting him in the bathroom all night.  Not to mention it's probably a pretty big health violation.

Then, they have someone stealing from them but they don't know who it is.  Why?  Because they don't have security cameras, which is odd.  Chase opens a bakery, but doesn't think security cameras would be a good idea?  I wonder why that is?  Perhaps because she's dumber than a box of rocks?

I'm also guessing the author has never actually been to Minneapolis except maybe for a day or two on vacation, because she mentions how it's August and she'll have to dig her sweaters out soon.  I grew up in Minneapolis.  You need those sweaters now.  My sister still lives there, and it's July, and they're having days in the 70's right now.  So the nights will definitely be chillier.  I went there several years ago in August and wore sweatshirts and a light jacket.  It also rains.  A lot.  I'm also thinking it's probably not a good idea to walk out alone at night in Dinkytown.  This isn't a small town.

Then, someone puts rats in their business which they discover before the health inspector shows up.  Which, unless the health inspector is dumber than a box of rocks also, would know that these are rats that have come from a pet shop, since they're tame and don't look anything like feral rats.  These are white rats that you can pick up.  Yeah, the inspector would have to be pretty stupid not to be able to tell the difference.

Then - and this is the big one - after the health inspector visits, Chase is talking with her friend Julie and she actually says this:  "We had a violation on the health inspection, but it's an easy fix - just the sign missing that tells us to wash our hands.  Stupid regulation anyway."  Excuse me?  She thinks it's stupid for employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom?  Ewww...you want to buy food where the employees don’t wash their hands?  Now I wonder if she washes her hands at home.  Gross!

Here's an FYI for the author:  Gabe's prints would have been on the knife, considering that even if the knife had been washed, he would have had to touch it to put it back in the butcher block.  So the fact that only Chase's prints were on the knife should have alerted them that the killer must have wiped the knife clean and she was telling the truth.

Then there's the hint of the ubiquitous love triangle.  No thanks.  I absolutely abhor them.  They're never interesting and always annoying.  I say it like this:  if it were a guy who was stringing along two women, you'd think he was a dog, or worse.  So why is it okay when a woman does it?

But the worst is poor Quincy:  cats don't eat constantly, they're not dogs.  So you can leave their food down all day and they'll only eat when they're hungry.  But it's irresponsible for Anna to keep shoving sugar-laden foods in his face.  Especially since cats can't taste sweets.  At all.  They are the only mammal unable to do so.  They don't have that protein gene.  Which has me wondering why he's eating them.  Get your facts before you write.  It helps.

So needless to say, I won't be reading any more in this series, even though I've bought the other two books.  I have better things to do with my time than be annoyed.

https://www.amazon.com/Fat-Cat-At-Large-Mystery/dp/0425267423/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2918917749

More on Janet Cantrell's Books:   https://www.fantasticfiction.com/c/janet-cantrell/

Plum deadly

Author:  Ellie Grant
Genre:   Mystery

Trade Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781451689556
Gallery Books
304 Pages
$9.98; $10.99 Amazon
September 3, 2013

⭐

Unjustly accused of cooking the books, Maggie Grady is forced to retreat from her high-flying New York financial career to the town where she grew up.  Her aunt Clara greets her with open arms and a job at the family-owned business that has baked the best pies in the South for over forty years.  Unfortunately, while Maggie is determined to return to banking, her reputation there seems permanently in the pits.  That is, until her old boss, Lou, visits with news that he's found the real crook.  Before he can reveal the details, though, Maggie finds his body right behind the pie shop.

With only her own word that Lou planned to exonerate her, Maggie is in the spotlight.  the police seem to suspect that Aunt Clara's damson pie may not be just dangerously delectable, but downright deadly.  Maggie doesn't just have her own name to clear, she has to make sure that her aunt's beloved business isn't harmed, either.  Yummy local reporter Ryan Summerour appears eager to help, and Maggie can't help hoping that it's not just the police who find her a person of interest - but Ryan, as well.  She'd thought it challenging to make the perfect pie crust that Aunt Clara demands, but that turns out to be nothing compared with finding a murderer...

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

I started to read this book and got through part of the first chapter before...

What on earth is going on here?  I can see why there were only two of these.  Almost immediately, the protagonist tells us that she lost her job at a bank because she'd been accused of embezzling money from an important client.  They showed her papers that verified this and told her they wanted to keep it quiet.  They froze her bank accounts and said they would take what was needed to pay back her debt.

First, you'd have to be pretty darn stupid to embezzle money and leave a paper trail behind you.  Then, we're told a policeman was standing outside her door at home to make sure she didn't take anything valuable with her.  Huh?  They want to 'keep it quiet' but tell the police?  How does that work?  The police are not going to ignore embezzlement, so why would they tell them?  They can't just order and officer to stand outside her door with no reason behind it.  There wouldn't have been a police officer at all.

Secondly, they really don't have the right to stop her from taking her belongings, unless they have proof she bought them with stolen money (and they didn't) - this was ridiculous.  From.  Her.  Home.  There is no way they could have stopped her from taking her clothing, jewelry, shoes, household appliances, furniture, etc., if it came down to it.  And, since the author mentioned it, if it was her home, why did she leave?  Being accused isn't the same as being convicted.

If they tried this garbage with someone in actuality, then they'd better be prepared for the court fight that comes next.  Because you can bet your sweet rear end there certainly would be one.  An innocent person would not only have denied it, they'd threaten to take it to court, get an attorney, and demand copies of the "incriminating" evidence.  They'd better have more than a couple of sheets of paper - and be able to answer where the 'evidence' came from.

When it comes to that, why didn't she?  She knew she wasn't guilty but didn't fight it?  Just accepted it and grabbed a duffel bag full of everyday clothing and left?

The author should have done better homework.  This was just sloppy.  Either get your facts together or write something else.  FYI, dumpster isn't capitalized unless it's the actual name of the company that produces it or at the beginning of a sentence.

I won't give away the ending, but I will say that Maggie is a complete moron.  If you want to see the reason why I say that, I have hidden it in a spoiler on Goodreads.

There were so many things wrong with this book and not a single thing right.

https://www.amazon.com/Plum-Deadly-Ellie-Grant/dp/1451689551/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2917267613

More on Ellie Grant's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/g/ellie-grant/

And Then They Were Doomed (A Little Library Mystery)

Author:  Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli
Genre:   Mystery

Hardcover; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781643850009
Crooked Lane Books
$26.99; $12.99 Amazon
August 13, 2019

⭐⭐

Little person author Zoe Zola believes that one of the unluckiest things in life is to receive an invitation - in the form of a letter edged in black - to an Agatha Christie symposium at an old Upper Peninsula hunting lodge.  Her reluctance dissipates when she learns that the organizer is named Emily Brent - the name of a character poisoned by cyanide in Christie's And Then There Were None.

As a dreary rain soaks the U.P., Zoe and nine other Christie scholars - each of whom bears a vague resemblance to one of the mystery novel's characters - arrive at the lodge.  At the opening night dinner, arguments flare over the experts' discordant theories about Christie.  Next morning, the guests find one particularly odious man has gone - whereabouts and reasons unknown.  Such a coincidental resemblance to a work of fiction is surely impossible; therefore, it appears to be possible.

As the guests disappear, one by one, Zoe resolves to beat a hasty retreat - but her car won't start.  She calls her friend, amateur sleuth/little librarian Jenny Weston, but Jenny will have to wait out a storm off Lake Superior before she can come to the rescue.  If Zoe's to stay alive to greet Jenny when she eventually arrives, she'll have to draw on everything she knows about Agatha Christie's devilish plots.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Zoe Zola is a writer who is writing a biography on the life of author Agatha Christie.  When she receives a black-edged envelope, it's not the first time she's ever seen one.  It always means death.  And it's an omen she thought ended with the death of her own mother.  Because it seemed her mother had sinned in the eyes of her family, and each time an envelope arrived, it meant the loss of one more family member she would never see again.

So Zoe doesn't open the letter, merely looks at it.  She thought she was done with her mother's family, they would never find her.  But now...when her neighbor Dora arrives, she sees the letter, and when Dora's daughter Jenny comes to Zoe's home, she finds both her mother and Zoe staring at it.  So Jenny opens it - and finds not a death notice, but an invitation to a webinar on Agatha Christie.

After much indecision, Zoe decides to attend, and Jenny will drive her there.  Jenny, for her part, has decided she can't marry the man who loves her but doesn't know why.  So she's going to visit her sister Lisa, a documentary filmmaker, while Zoe is at the webinar, and will return to drive her home.  But will either things turn out the way they want?  Or will Zoe find herself in a bizarre twist of Christie's famous And Then There Were None?...

This is the first time I've made a foray into this author's works, and more than likely it will be the last.  The book is...very dark, to say the least.  It's also full of revenge and hatred, much more than any cozy I've ever read, or should be labeled.  I'm not sure if the author was perhaps trying to "recreate" a combination of Christie's And Then There Were None and Murder On the Orient Express, but if so, it falls far short.  Christie's works are witty and highly entertaining, and this one is neither.

The characters are not people I would ever want to know or spend time with, which is essential in a book.  Even with Zoe's difficult past, she states how she is happy, but she's not.  She has walls that people will never get through - and you can't have that many walls around your soul and be truly happy.  She takes personal offense at things people say - the way people say things, because why should you walk on eggshells around them so as not to offend them? - even though no offense is made, and subtly attacks others.

Dora is just Dora - seemingly happy but refusing to confront her daughters about anything, for some odd reason.  I'm not saying she should be combative, far from it; but if you can't have discussions with your own children about life - and they think it's interfering instead - well, something is really wrong.   Both her daughters are dysfunctional and she won't confront them because they won't talk to her if she does.  So what was she doing why they were growing up?  Ignoring them?  Leaving them to their own devices instead of developing a healthy relationship with them?  Just figuring if she let them do whatever they wanted there would be no future problems?

The older daughter, Lisa, would rather live on twigs and berries than worry about having financial stability (she can make documentaries till the cows come home, but if no one is going to pay to see them, what good does it do?) while the younger, Jenny, has a man who's in love with her and wants to marry her, and just like her mother, she won't sit down and talk out the problems so the relationship can progress.  She'd rather just walk away.  Do these sound like people you want to spend time with?  And these women aren't just out of their teens - Lisa is 40, and Jenny is 38!  That one threw me a little bit.

Then there were the problems which popped up before I even got halfway into the book:  I had a difficult time believing that a guy Jenny had gone to high school with but hadn't seen since then would just proposition her after about twenty minutes of talking to each other.  Really?  He tells her he had a crush on her in high school and then wants to jump in the sack with her.  Right.

Then, when Zoe got to the lodge, Jenny went in with her.  Almost immediately the proprietor Emily Brent, started talking about Jenny leaving.  Zoe should have decided to go with her.  If Emily hemmed and hawed and decided she could find a room for Jenny after all, then Zoe would have known immediately why she was there.  It didn't make any sense - missed clues on her part, and she was writing the biography of Christie!  The very minute Emily grabbed Jenny's arm to shove her out the door should have alerted them both.  But it didn't.  And therefore, I couldn't take the book seriously after that.  When danger slaps you in the face, you don't turn the other cheek.  You run like hell.

Unfortunately, Zoe and Jenny didn't take the hint, but I did, and I refuse to read books that will wind up making me angry or irritated, which this book would have done if I'd read it without skipping bits and pieces.  Especially when I got to the end and realized I was right.

This was a story of using someone to get revenge on another person.  Using them to even a score.  Not even caring about their emotions, their physical being, the end result they would have to live with.  Regardless of that outcome, there was nothing that made it right, or made it seem like it would have been worth it.  Is it worth it to a human being to lose part of your soul to aid someone who destroyed that which you loved most?  I don't think so, at least not in my opinion.  To bury the anger you feel at realizing you were played like a violin and not be able to do anything about it?  Sorry, but perhaps if things had turned out differently; if there had been justice for Zoe; I might have liked the book better.  There wasn’t even justice for the reader.

https://www.amazon.com/Then-They-Were-Doomed-Library/dp/1643850008/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2916010409

More on Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/elizabeth-kane-buzzelli/

Just Killing Time (A Clock Shop Mystery #1)

Author:  Julianne Holmes
Genre:   Mystery

Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9780425275528
Berkley Publishing
294 Pages
$7.59; $2.99 Amazon
October 6, 2015

⭐⭐⭐

Ruth's beloved grandfather instilled in her a love of timepieces.  Unfortunately, after her grandmother died and he remarried, Ruth and Grandpa Thom became estranged.  She had wanted to reconnect after her recent divorce, but sadly they've run out of time.  Her grandfather has been found dead after a break-in at his shop - and the police believe he was murdered.

Now Ruth has been named the heir to Grandpa Thom's clock shop, the Cog & Sprocket, in the small Berkshire town of Orchard, Massachusetts.  As soon as she moves into the small apartment above the shop and begins tackling the heaps of unfinished work, Ruth finds herself trying to stay on the good side of Grandpa's bossy gray cat, Bezel, while avoiding the step-grandmother she never wanted.  But as old secrets and grudges start to surface, Ruth will have to kick into high gear to solve the killer case before someone else winds up dead...

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Ruth Clagan has just spent a week at a Vermont retreat, trying to decide what she wants to do with her life.  Her marriage has recently dissolved, and she's estranged from her grandfather - partly because he never wanted her to marry her ex-husband, and partly because he remarried only two years after the loss of her beloved grandmother.  But now she wants to reconnect, and sends him a postcard telling him so.  But before she's able to see him, she receives a telephone call from an attorney who tells her that her grandfather - or G.T. (for Grandpa Thom) as she calls him, is dead - killed during a robbery, and the sheriff suspects it was murder.

Stunned, she returns to the small Massachusetts town of Orchard to find out what happened.  She finds that while his wife received the house and its contents, she received her grandfather’s shop, the Cog & Sprocket, and everything in it.  Ruth is overwhelmed by it all, and still doesn’t know if she’s going to stay or not.  Fortunately, she has the help of G.T’s assistant Pat Reed, and unfortunately, she’ll have to work with G.T.’s widow Caroline, because she does the books and knows what G.T. was working on.  While she may not be happy about the situation, she hasn’t got a choice.  She's also inherited the shop's cat, Bezel, since she's going to be living in the apartment above the shop.

What Ruth does see is that there are clocks - so many clocks - filling the shop, and Pat tells her they're from the estate of Grover Winter, G.T.'s best friend.  He bought them all at once, and had planned on repairing and selling them, with some of the profits to go to Grover's family.  But since he died before he was able to do so, that task will fall to Ruth.  If she decides to stay.

However, Ruth is curious to find out who killed her grandfather, and she hopes she can find the answers in the shop.  But she'd better find out soon, because if she doesn't, Orchard might have one more death on their hands...

I have to say that for the most part I enjoyed this book, but I really didn't care about all the inner workings of a clock.  It seems that would appeal only to those who are interested, and I've always felt that writers should realize if their books are going to appeal to a mass audience or a select few.  Perhaps if there had been more on the mystery and less on clocks, I might have enjoyed it a whole lot more.

There were also a couple of things that bothered me.  I get that Caroline inherited the house and its contents, but she had to have known that the quilt was made for Ruth by her grandmother, so I wondered why she didn't offer it to her.  After all, would the loss of one quilt make that much of a difference?  She also didn't ask if there was anything in the house that had belonged to Ruth's grandmother that she might have wanted.  Wouldn't they have meant more to Ruth than to her?  Especially since she'd never met the woman?  It's little things like this that bring the reader to care about characters more. 

Aside from this, the book was pretty much an easy read.  It wasn't difficult to figure out the killer, although the reason why didn't become apparent until toward the end, which is fine.  I understand her wanting to rebuild the clock tower, but that's not much of a reason to read the next book. 

Unfortunately, most of the book was about clocks and the clock tower.  If you remove these parts, there wasn't a whole lot of mystery left.  Just when you'd start to get involved in the mystery, here comes another infomercial on the workings of clocks.  Because of this, the book was finished quickly without too much thought.

However, since it is the first in a (very short) series, I may or may not read the rest of these books.  All in all, not a bad book, but not a great one, either.

https://www.amazon.com/Just-Killing-Time-Clock-Mystery/dp/0425275523/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2915962094

More on Julianne Holmes's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/h/julianne-holmes/

Murder in Tranquility Park (A Ferrara Family Mystery #2)

Author:  J. D. Griffo
Genre:   Mystery

Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781496713964
Kensington Mystery
317 Pages
$6.47; $5.84 Amazon
March 26, 2019

⭐

Ever since Alberta Scaglione inherited her spinster aunt's Cape Cod cottage, she's been enjoying the good life in Tranquility, New Jersey, with her black cat, Lola.  But since things are mostly quiet in this town, she finds other things to do - like joining Jinx for morning jogs in Tranquility Park.  She has to do something to stay healthy, as long as it doesn't involve Jinx's healthful tofu sausages and gluten-free pasta.  But when they stumble across a treehouse hidden in the trees, and a dead body underneath it, they take a detour into solving a murder.  Now the Ferrara ladies will have to exercise extreme caution to avoid a permanent decline in their health...

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Alberta Scaglione inherited millions from her spinster aunt, but spends her days sitting in her backyard watching the lake.  Her granddaughter Jinx has convinced her to jog with her three days a week, and on this day while they are jogging through Tranquility Park, they come across a treehouse...and the dead body of a local man.

Now, to the chagrin of the local police, they're determined to solve the murder first.  Hopefully, before the murderer finds them...

Okay, I said I wouldn't read any more in this series and I probably should have followed my own advice.  I couldn't even get through this book.  First, why are they calling themselves the Ferrara Family Detective Agency when they aren't one?  Secondly, it was creepy why Jinx was asking her grandmother about her sex life.  Ick.  Also, why was Jinx telling Vinnie (the police detective) what size bra Alberta wears?  (Telling Alberta she should be proud of her bust size implies that having large breasts should be flaunted.  And FYI, I'm larger than Alberta, so it's not because I'm a small-breasted woman - it's because a woman isn't defined by the size of her breasts, as Jinx seems to think).  (Also, I just looked it up and saw that the author is a man - draw your own conclusions).

Also, Alberta tells us that Italian men all scream instead of just speaking in a natural voice to get their point across.  Huh.  I wouldn't recommend people move next door to an Italian couple, if that's the case.

Then Alberta states as how it's their crime scene, and not the police's, as they got their first.  Their, as in Alberta and Jinx.  Who are not police officers.  Who are not police detectives.  Who are not private investigators.  Who are private citizens.

At this point the book lost me.  These women truly believe they have the right to investigate on the fact alone that they found the body.  They don't even try to hide it.  They actually tell the police that.  Well, I guess it beats trying to figure out a plot line that would give them a real reason to investigate, right?

Unfortunately these women are abrasive, abusive, and can't be taken seriously.  There are so many more better books out there.

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Tranquility-Ferrara-Family-Mystery/dp/1496713966/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2912113669

More on J.D. Griffo's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/g/j-d-griffo/

The Bodies in the Library (A First Edition Library Mystery #1)

Author:  Marty Wingate
Genre:   Mystery

Hardcover; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781984804105
Berkley Publishing
336 Pages
$26.00; $13.99 Amazon
October 8, 2019

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hayley Burke has landed a dream job.  She is the new curator of Lady Georgiana Fowling's First Edition library.  The library is kept at Middlebank House, a lovely Georgian home in Bath, England.  Hayley lives on the premises and works with the finicky Glynis Woolgar, Lady Fowling's former secretary.

Mrs. Woolgar does not like Hayley's ideas to modernize The First Edition Society and bring in fresh blood.  And she is not even aware of the fact that Hayley does not know the first thing about the Golden Age of Mysteries.  Hayley is faking it till she makes it, and one of her plans to breathe new life into the Society is actually taking flight - an Agatha Christie fan fiction writers group is paying dues to meet up at Middlebank House.

But when one of the group is found dead in the venerable stacks of the library, Hayley has to catch the killer to save the Society and her new job.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

Hayley Burke is both happy and apprehensive when she's hired as the curator for the First Edition library at Middlebank House.  Happy because the job pays well and she gets to live on premises for free.  Apprehensive because the collection is of authors of the Golden Age of Mysteries, and she's never read a mystery in her life.  She's afraid she'll be found out and will be sacked.

There's also the problem of Mrs. Woolgar - secretary to the late Lady Georgiana Fowling, owner of the books.  Mrs. Woolgar resents Hayley, and it shows.  However, they must work together so she manages to keep a stiff upper lip about it.  (While Hayley lives above the library, Glynis Woolgar lives below it in a flat of her own).

Hayley is intent on finding ways to make the library more profitable and more well known.  To this end she's allowed a writer's group of mystery fan fiction to meet there every Wednesday.  The group - five students at a local university - are prone to contentiousness, and have, on occasion, left a bit of a mess for Hayley to clean up.  Mrs. Woolgar doesn't want the group to meet there, and sadly, Hayley has come to agree and says she will speak with them.

But before she can tell them, one of the group is found dead in the library (shades of Agatha Christie!) but no one knows how he got there since the library and the building was locked.  Afraid of the negative impact on the group, Hayley finds that she's up to her ears in suspects, and needs to sift through them to find out who wanted the man dead...and maybe learn a little about how mystery writers come to their own deadly conclusions in the process..

I have to say that I have loved all of Ms. Wingate's books thus far, and this one is no different. Hayley Burke is a 40-something divorced woman who has landed a plum job (thanks to her friend Adele) that she's sure she doesn't deserve.  She's in a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend Wyn, and due to attempting to set literary evenings with the local university, has met a professor that is making her question her relationship altogether.

But it's her lack of knowledge as to mysteries in the written form that has her most worried.  She's sure she'll be found out and just as afraid she'll lose her position because of it.  But when she finds herself in a real-life murder, everything changes, and now her job really could be on the line.

I do like Hayley's character.  She's insecure but determined, and even though the police have told her to stay out of the investigation, she really believes she will - until she's forced to enter it, and she's not sure exactly what she's doing.  Much as someone would act if they were suddenly thrust in the middle of a real-life mystery.

The only person I didn't care for in the book is the character of her daughter, Dinah.  Dinah is 22 years old and going to school.  But she's selfish and thoughtless - partly because of Hayley, of course; but it rankled that she treats Hayley like a never-ending bank, especially since she has to know that Hayley is also paying for her own mother's care.  I would like to see her realize, in future books, that she shouldn't depend upon Hayley for all her financial needs and perhaps get a part-time job to help pay her own way and ease her mother's dwindling bank account.

I do feel the mystery was done well, and as I love locked-room mysteries, I was pretty sure I had it figured out (I was right) but finding out who actually did the deed took a bit longer.  I loved the library cat, Bunter (and knew who he was named after).  Bunter became as invaluable to Hayley as his namesake became to Lord Peter; and there's a tiny hint of paranormal that was interesting, to say the least.

All in all, I felt it was done very well as an introduction to Hayley and the First Edition Library.  While there wasn't a huge depth of character in this book, that can be easily remedied as the series progresses, when we get to know the main characters better.  A little now and more later.

In the end, when the murderer is caught and the reason why the murder was committed, it was believable, and the clues were there if you see them.  An admirable beginning for a new series, and I hope to see the next one soon.

https://www.amazon.com/Bodies-Library-First-Mystery/dp/1984804103/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2912098082

More on Marty Wingate's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/marty-wingate/

A Lively Form of Death (A Chief Inspector Morrissey Mystery #1)

Author:  Kay Mitchell
Genre:   Mystery

Hardcover; Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9780373261062
Worldwide Mystery
251
Various Prices
September 1, 1992

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Marion Walsh, the town's local femme fatale, loses her housekeeper to a bottle of poisoned milk - a bottle most likely intended for her.  Helen Goddard, whose husband, Robert, had been shamelessly seduced by Marion's charms, is the logical suspect, especially after Marion is brutally murdered.

But Chief Inspector Morrissey begins to sense something twisted and evil, something beyond the obvious love triangle everyone seems willing to accept - particularly after a convenient suicide and confessional note.

A killer has gotten away with three near-perfect murders - perhaps more as the trail leads back to an unsolved case of missing boys...and to a hideous mesh of perversion, blackmail and deadly secrets.

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Helen Goddard knows her husband is sleeping with Marion Walsh.  She hasn't done anything about it because she's not sure what she wants to do.  But there's gossip - mainly between the charwoman for Marion and the milkman's wife.  And everyone in town knows about it.  Marion's char, Betty Hartley, isn't above making a snide remark or two to Marion, and also not above stealing a pint or two of milk, figuring she won't notice.

But Little Henge is about to change:  Betty steals a pint of milk from Marion - milk that's tainted with cyanide, and was more than likely meant for Marion.  Now the police are called, and Chief Inspector John Morrissey travels to Little Henge to question, search, and discover what he can.  What he discovers is that Betty's cohort, Ida - the milkman's wife - has a lot to say about the murder and who might be suspect - namely, Helen Goddard, whose husband was having an affair with Marion.

But Morrissey doesn't expect to find that he's attracted to Helen; mostly because she reminds him of his wife, and he doesn't want to believe she's capable of murder.  After all, Marion is an unlikable woman, and he decides right away there's more to the murder than she's saying.  But it's not until Marion is also murdered - brutally - that he begins his investigation in earnest, and what he finds isn't at all what he expected...

This is the first in a short series of books by Kay Mitchell.  I can only say after reading it I wish she would have gone on with the series.  It is that good.  Really.  The mystery starts almost immediately with the death of Betty, and we learn that Marion doesn't want anyone involved in her life - so much so, she destroys evidence.  But it is what comes after that which is so fascinating to read.

Morrissey is very thorough, and keeps his emotions in check while he investigates.  He uses his logic at every step of the way, and even when it leads him down one road, if he's not positive it's the right one, he begins again until it leads him down another.  In this he differs from his sergeant, Barrett, who is not only ruled by emotion, he's convinced the murderer is Helen's husband Robert.  He rankles at being dismissed by Morrissey, because he thinks he's smarter than him.  But Morrissey is no fool.  He knows what Barrett is about - and he also knows Barrett has more on his mind than a murder case.

But then Morrissey's wife Margaret tells him of something that's bothering her - it seems on one of her committees they were discussing the disappearance of several boys from their son's school - more than would be expected, and asks him to look into it, which he promises to do when the case is settled.  However, when everything seems to be wrapped up nice and tight, Morrissey has questions...and those questions lead him down another path again...one he discovers quite by accident and ties both cases together.

The book is written very well, with characters who are believable and animated; you are drawn into the story almost immediately and waiting for the next piece of information to fall in your lap.  Morrissey is quite interesting and I enjoyed watching him put the pieces together as he gleaned information from various sources.  Small things discovered had him chasing clues that lead to something else to add to the puzzle.  Red herrings abound, and it is up to the reader to decipher them along with the Inspector.

It is by chance that I discovered this book and I liked it so well that I have been searching out the rest in the series.  This book is a British police procedural of the finest and should be read by anyone who enjoys the same.  Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Lively-Form-Death-Kay-Mitchell/dp/0373261063/ref

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2906766186

More on Kay Mitchell's Books:  https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/kay-mitchell/