Tuesday, December 10, 2024

'BOOKED FOR MURDER'.....A NOT-SO-FAMOUS ACTRESS INHERITS A HOUSE, A BOOKSTORE PLUS ARSON AND MURDER......

 Booked For Murder by P.J. Nelson (2024)

     I gravitate to a cozy mystery for the same reasons I think other readers do.......something about the setting, the characters or the peculiar situations of the crimes catches my attention, something that makes this particular cozy stand out from hundreds of others.

     "Booked For Murder' does have all the familiar tropes firmly in place...... small town where everybody knows everybody else, a bookstore to die for (and somebody does)., and a plus-sized cat lounging around at the most pivotal moments.

     The lead character (and amateur sleuth) Madeline Brimley is what initially drew me in. I'm a theater nerd/buff and Madeline's a failed actress of indeterminate age who's inherited a combo Victorian house-bookstore from her late Aunt Rose. Madeline's spotty, up-and-down theatrical career can't possibly equal the drama besetting her in her first few days of taking over the house and its store.

     Somebody torches the gazebo behind the house and Madeline receives threatening phone calls from what sounds like a backwoods hood. And worst of all, someone ends up stabbed to death in the store, maybe an unlucky innocent victim whom the killer mistook for Madeline. Even the worst play she ever acted in can't compete with this this level of life-threatening melodrama.......

     In true cozy fashion, our heroine ends up as part of trio of would-be sleuths, along her Aunt Rose's lifelong friend Philomena and local minister Gloria. Suspects abound and Madeline, alternately bold and foolish, attempts interrogating them with results ranging from confounding to downright perilous. And along the way, there's lots of witty asides referring back to her checkered career in the theater.

     A quick and mildly entertaining read, but with a few major problems in characterization and plotting. The author has some of ,well let's say the less educated characters talking like they escaped from a community theater production of 'Deliverance' and after the climactic reveal, the book rambles on as if we're simply content to hang out with Madeline and pals. I think it'll take a few more books in the series to earn that privilege from readers.

       3 stars (***

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