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 ....