Leslie Meier's Candy Corn Murder

Yep. I've done the unthinkable (for me, anyway), and jumped from the 1st in a series straight to the 22nd. (It's my own fault for not being able to say "no" when NetGalley offers me something shiny!)

It's been kind of trippy. Like, taking a trip in a time-machine "trippy." 24 hours ago I was finishing up reading Mistletoe Murder and about Lucy and Bill and their lives in Tinker's Cove, Maine, with their three children -- the oldest of whom was only slightly older than my John is now. Now, here they all are again (and then some) in Candy Corn Murder with lives of their own far beyond Cub Scouts and Barbie dolls. So many series seem to just stand still time-wise -- updating cultural references but not character ages along the way. It was nice to see that I'll actually get to "watch" these kids grow up 20+ years when I backtrack through the rest of the series.

Back to the story, though.

It's fast approaching Halloween and Tinker's Cove is gearing up for its first pumpkin festival. Among the events is a pumpkin catapult contest (like a smaller scale Punkin Chunkin which I readily admit to looking forward to watching every year). Lucy's husband Bill is entering the contest with his friend Evan and having a blast getting ready for it all until Ev doesn't show up for the big event ... at least not alive.

You guessed it! Evan's been murdered and Bill ends up the primary suspect and, so, of COURSE Lucy has to thrust herself into the middle of everything in order to prove his innocence.

She fails miserably and Bill is carted away to prison and the kids never speak to either one again ..... and that is not at all how it goes. Of COURSE she succeeds and the Stone family gets their "Happily Ever After Or At Least Until The Next Book" ending. Don't be daft.

There are quite a number of flashbacks to 1979 and, while it took a while to tie those to the current events when the pieces all came together it all made sense. Not only the flashbacks, but also side stories of domestic violence, abortion rights, marijuana legalization and long covered-up family secrets -- all come together. There were some pieces of the story, though, that just seemed to be there as filler. Rather annoying filler, at that. (Not nearly as bad as the "filler" that made me freak the first time I read the first in the series, though!)

All in all, another good and fast read. If all of the books in the series fly by as quickly as these two have for me I could have them knocked off in less than a month! Alas .... I still have those 20 Books of Summer to work ....

Revisiting Leslie Meier's Mistletoe Murder

The first time I attempted to read Mistletoe Murder was in December. It must have been the wrong time of the month for me to read it or something because I kind of freaked out, wrote a freaking out end to my blog post for it, and quit reading it.

Then a few weeks back came my beloved Kensington with an offer to read the latest in the series ahead of publication through NetGalley. I was torn. It was a pretty epic freakout and it would mean skipping straight to book # 22 in a series .... which I never ever do .... but .... in the end, I couldn't resist. So I downloaded # 22 and went back to reread # 1.

And I'm glad that I did.

Granted, the cause for my freakout was still there and still seems pointless. It could have been written in so many other ways without hurting the story, but when it comes right down to it, it ended up being a minor blip in an otherwise fun read.

By the end of the book (which took me less than a day to read -- including time spent sleeping and working) I cared about the characters and the town and decided to bump Candy Corn Murder up to the next book on my mental TBR ... and within just the first couple of chapters I'm already itching to backtrack and read the rest of the series in order as they should be.

Leslie Meier's Mistletoe Murder - A Spoiler-ish Partial Review

Every year I start reading nothing but Christmas-themed books as soon as Thanksgiving has come and gone. The next holly-jolly read is another cozy mystery - Leslie Meier's Mistletoe Murder. Rather than try to remember everything I want to touch on ... this time I'm just going to write little bits as I go.
This is the first book in the Lucy Stone series and I really didn't know much about it before starting aside from the cozy Christmas mystery thing.

Lucy Stone is a wife and mom-of-three living in Tinker Cove, Maine, and working at a customer service call center for an LL Bean-ish type store called Country Cousins. The book starts out with Lucy at work one night where she goes outside for a short break and discovers her super-wealthy boss in his car with a hose going from the tailpipe to the window. The boss is dead and the authorities say it's murder. Of course, her husband is all "oh just let the police handle it" ... but it's still only chapter two so we know that's not going to happen.

As if poor Lucy didn't have enough of her mind with all the baking and knitting and sewing she has to get done for the holidays!

Tinker Cove is one of those towns where everyone seems to know everyone else ... and everything about everyone else. I've lived in places like that. I didn't much like it.

HOLY CRAPANDAHALF!

Okay, authors of the world? Know this : some murders in a murder mystery are just NOT okay.

Included in this category are family pets -- cats especially.

Made it into Chapter Six and I'm done.

Maybe at some point in the future I'll revisit the story and find out who actually did in the boss ... but for now I'm going to go snuggle with my cat and carry on with something else to read.

Cats should not be strangled & left lying around in a freaking "cozy."

That's just so so SO not cozy.