Book Clubbed
Lorna Barrett
Berkley, Jul 1
2014, $25.95
ISBN 9780425252574
In Stoneham, New Hampshire, Haven't Got a
Clue bookstore owner Tricia “The Town Jinx” Miles finds her latest corpse when
a bookcase in the cookery bookstore owned by her sister Chamber of Commerce
president Angelica fell on the Chamber’s shrewish secretary Betsy
Dittmeyer. However, the cause of death
is not from the bookcase, but instead strangulation.
Tricia investigates the murder of the town’s
most unpopular person and quickly uncovers an anomaly as the victim possessed plenty
of money with no obvious source. Betsy’s
computer reveals the most likely basis for this income is Betsy’s incriminating
files on Chamber of Commerce members. As
she continues her inquiry, two males no longer acceptable in her life (ex-husband
Christopher Benson, and her on and off boyfriend Police Chief Grant Baker)
pursue Tricia.
The latest Booktown mystery (see Murder on
the Half-Shelf and Not the Killing
Type) is an engaging tale due to the entertaining small New England town
blather that includes series-running questions re the bookstore owning
siblings. The amateur sleuthing is fun with
plenty of family and professional suspects though the whodunit takes a backseat
to the disclosures of top personal secrets; while the two males chasing after
Tricia needs to be shelf under stale.
Harriet Klausner
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