Poirot agrees, and after arriving at Nasse House begins to meet some of the residents, including George and Hattie (whom everyone except Mr. Stubbs’ personal secretary Mrs. Brewis thinks is “simple”), architect Michael Weyman, and Amy Folliat, an older renter on the grounds and whose family previously owned Nasse House. Also expected soon is Etienne de Sousa, Mrs. Stubbs’ cousin from Italy.

On the day of the fair and the murder hunt game, things get a bit crazy, as the grounds are opened up to the general public. For the murder hunt, someone at Nasse House recommend a local girl named Marlene Tucker play the victim in the boathouse. Once the game is underway, Mrs. Oliver starts to have some doubts as to whether or not anyone will actually solve the “crime”.

Later in the afternoon, Mrs. Stubbs asks Mrs. Brewis to take a tea tray to the boathouse so Marlene can eat something. Once there, Mrs. Brewis discovers that Marlene has been murdered for real! The bad event that Mrs. Oliver feared really did happen after all. The question becomes: who would want to kill a 14-year-old girl? To make matters worse, no one can find Mrs. Stubbs either, and when her hat turns up floating in the river, everyone assumes the killer tallied two victims on that day.

Police investigators soon arrive to take over the case and question all suspects. They get nowhere, and even Poirot is unable to make headway. A full five weeks go by before he gets a flash of inspiration and figures out what went down at Nasse House.

Liked:

• I liked the setup and solution to this crime. Who knew that staged murder games were as popular back in Christie’s day as they are now? What an interesting way to frame the real murder
• The solution was very tricky, but fair. I was unable to guess that the current Hattie Stubbs wasn’t the real Hattie Stubbs, but the explanation — that George was already married when his mother Mrs. Folliat proposed Hattie as a wife — made sense, especially since the family was determined to keep hold of Nasse House. And killing the girl was necessary because the cousin was coming and would’ve spotted “Hattie” as a fraud? That was brilliant!
• I liked the reveal of the additional body under the folly (an architectural folly, I mean). After all, with “folly” being in the title, the reader expects it to play an important role in the story. That was the body of the original Hattie and was a nice touch.

Disliked:

• For some reason, this book seemed to progress at a snail’s pace for me. It took me an unusually long time to read it, and at no point in the story did I feel I was engrossed in a page-turner. In fact, I often found myself drifting off to sleep in the middle of reading it, and my Kindle took several tumbles to the mattress after falling from my senseless hands. That’s kind of disappointing for a murder mystery.
• There were too many characters in this novel, and they were not developed very well. I Besides the immediate residents of the house, I couldn’t keep anyone else straight because they had no distinguishing characteristics to make them memorable.
• Once again, Poirot didn’t narrate his investigation, so it was impossible for the reader to get clues from him about where to look for the solution. I miss having Hastings around, because he served as a sounding board for Poirot, thereby giving readers some insights into the detective’s thoughts.

Rating:

Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie certainly isn’t the best book in her canon. The way was slow-going most of the time, but I think the solution made the journey well worth it. I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

Myron is stunned at first. After all, Clip was the man who drafted Myron in the first round for the Boston Celtics. But then Myron blew out his knee in an exhibition game, thereby ending his career forever. Now he’ll finally get to achieve his dream of playing in the NBA — albeit under very strange circumstances. He accepts the case.

Best friend Win and assistant Esperanza are less than thrilled at the prospect. They knew how much basketball meant to Myron and how it destroyed him when he learned he couldn’t play anymore. They don’t want to see Myron go through this charade because they don’t think he can handle it being a charade. But he convinces them to help with the case anyway.

During the course of the investigation, Myron and Win slowly uncover bits and pieces of Greg’s history as well as recent goings-on in his life. They start to cobble together a few different theories about what might have happened to the superstar, but none of the theories make much sense. The stakes are raised when the marks of a crime scene are found in Greg’s basement and the dead body turns out to be a woman he knew.

The plot takes a few twists and turns before the full story becomes clear. The woman, Carla (aka Liz Gorman), had been involved in a bank robbery in Arizona. Part of the haul included an audiotape from a safe deposit box. On the tape, Greg Downing and another player are heard, with Greg paying the other player $10,000 to deliberately injure Myron. Carla thought the tape could be used to blackmail Greg, so she got in contact with him. Once he realized the tape could leak, he went into hiding. Then Greg’s girlfriend, a sports reporter, killed Carla to protect Greg. Myron and Win figure everything out by the end and bring everyone to justice.

Liked:

• This was another quick, easy read from the Myron Bolitar series. Sometimes there’s nothing better than light entertainment!
• Myron and Win are definitely growing on me as characters, as it’s obvious that Coben is honing and refining them as the series goes along. There weren’t quite so many smart-ass remarks from them this time around, which made the dialogue more believable and made it funnier when the two did crack jokes. And Win didn’t come off as quite so much a Superman caricature in this one, which is progress in the right direction.
• The case was very twisty, and even though it was rather far-fetched once all the details were unraveled, at least it kept me guessing throughout.

Disliked:

• Come on, Myron getting put on an NBA team in the middle of a playoff run just because the coach “really liked him” and wanted him to realize that his knee was blown for good? That was about as stupid a plot point as they come. And to have Myron actually get in a couple games and score points? Oh, puhleeze!
• That whole blackmail-murder scenario seemed like a stretch. Those are some pretty damn extreme actions for over an audiotape about an assault that took place 10 years ago. But I guess if a professional athlete thought his career and millions of dollars were in jeopardy, maybe things would unfold like this. Just maybe.
• The Big Cindy stuff was ridiculous and made it seem like Coben was trying too hard to be funny. I could have done without that.

Rating:
Overall, I thought Fade Away by Harlan Coben was an average mystery novel. It featured good characters and the plot kept me guessing until the end, but it wasn’t a page-turner by any means. An average book gets an average rating of 3 stars out of 5.

But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn’t show. Frank took it for granted that she’d dumped him-probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again.

Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie’s suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not.

Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he’s a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly-and he’s willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.”

Warning: spoilers below

Liked:

• I’ve read all three of Tana French’s novels, and think this was the best by far. The story was well-written and engrossing, and the characters were great.
• At first, I thought Shay’s motive for killing Rosie was weak as hell, and I started to get pissed off at being cheated out of yet another satisfying ending. But then French came back with the bit about Frank and Shay having planned their father’s murder, and suddenly Shay’s actions made a LOT more sense. Kudos to French for that twist, which I never saw coming at all.
• I liked that French wasn’t afraid to make her protagonist unlikable. There were many times in this story when I wanted to punch Frank in the face, and then many others when I cheered him on. I like this kind of character much better than the ones who are ALWAYS right no matter what. Someone like Frank Mackey at least comes off as realistic.

Disliked:

• I kind of pegged Shay as the doer as soon as he was introduced (despite not being able to guess at his motive), so I was a tad bit disappointed that I turned out the be right. Still, I found it odd — and not very likely — that he would fully confess to Frank so readily. He hadn’t seen Frank in 22 years, and knew the guy took his duties as a cop very seriously. If Shay had just kept his mouth shut, Frank wouldn’t have had much of a case at all.
• I wish the ending had gone a bit further and told us if Shay was convicted or not. I actually felt bad for him by the time he got done spinning that tale about how he and Frank were supposed to kill their dad, so I’m hoping he got off scot-free.
• The middle of the book really lagged for me. The beginning and end were great, but it took some work to plow through the middle. I think some of the scenes with the Murder Squad floater (I forgot his name already) could have been cut. I’m not sure why French had to build that character up so much — unless her next novel will center on him.

Rating:

I thought Faithful Place by Tana French was a gripping read for the most part. French is clearly a talented writer, and though she occasionally has problems with plot and pacing, this book is still a wonderful achievement and a perfect candidate for your summer reading list. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

It’s not all smooth sailing for the film crew, however. There are problems with securing the right locations, and the director, Dean Lawrence, who has a reputation for boozing and womanizing, seems to be intent on keeping up with those two pastimes during filming. Moreover, there is some friction on the set when one of the leading actors, Burke Anson, says some damaging things about Lawrence during a TV interview.

Things come to a head when Lawrence tries to demonstrate what he wants from his actors during a particular scene. The scene is to be a suicide, and Burke was to use a gun with the firing pin removed. But when Lawrence pulls the trigger, it turns out to be a real gun, killing the director instantly. Who switched the guns? And was the intended target Lawrence, who was known for his demonstrations with props, or Burke, the man who was supposed to be in the scene in the first place?

Mike Kingston is the acting sheriff during this time because Bill Todd is away at a conference in Miami. He handles the official part of the investigation, while Hannah (of course) gets involved in the unofficial aspects. She goes about solving the crime in the usual way, which consists of asking people questions and trying to figure out the motive.

Along with the murder investigation, one of the main subplots in the book is the answer to the marriage proposals that Hannah received in the last book when both Mike and Norman popped the question. Not surprisingly, Hannah turned them both down, saying that she wasn’t ready to make up her mind yet.

Liked:

• I thought the movie storyline was pretty good. I know it’s kind of a cliché in these “cozy mysteries” to bring a movie crew to town, but there are so many other clichés in these types of books that one more isn’t going to bother me. Crisis in Cherrywood actually sounded like a decent film, and Fluke revealed so much of the movie plot that the reader could tell she thought it out very carefully.
• The killer reveal was more believable this time than in books past. At least Fluke didn’t make Hannah out to be some sort of super sleuth in her detective work this time. Instead, Hannah stumbled across the killer’s identity more by accident than by detective work.

Disliked:
*I used to rip Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen novels, but then I discovered that the author is 68 years old. Now I’d feel like I’m tearing into my own mother if I’m too harsh here, so I’m going to tread a bit more lightly.

• The Hannah-Norman-Mike triangle still grates, and needs to be resolved sooner rather than later. Fluke really shows her age when it comes to handling this relationship, because it’s something straight out of the 1950s. There is absolutely no way in hell these two men would continue to allow themselves to be strung along by Hannah, while being friends with each other in process. And the fact that there’s no sex involved just makes the whole situation even more eye-rollingly annoying.
• I still cannot stand the way little 6-year-old Tracy is portrayed as some kind of perfect genius. She does everything right, acts like someone three times her age, and is beautiful to boot? Whatever. Fluke is probably idealizing a favorite granddaughter on these pages….
• There were tons of recipes in this book, which interrupted the flow of the story. I know this series is called “Murder She Baked”, but 14 recipes is going a bit overboard. Do people actually try all the recipes in these books? If I did that, I’d need a year’s supply of the best diet supplement to even have a chance of maintaining my figure!
• Another potential lover for Hannah. Sigh. She’s depicted as 20-30 pounds overweight, has unruly red hair, and is very condescending to everyone around her. So I have to ask: Why is it that all these men are supposedly swooning over Hannah? I don’t get it.

Rating:

I think the key to enjoying Joanne Fluke’s books is not to hold them to the same standards as other mysteries. After all, these are of the “cozy” variety and have way different elements and conventions than other potboilers. So I’m just going to take these books as they come, warts and all. I guess the fact that I keep reading them even after I say I’m going to stop is an indication that they’re at least enjoyable on some level. I give Cherry Cheesecake Murder 3 stars out of 5.

There’s not much time to worry about that, however, as Lisa and Herb’s wedding day is quickly approaching. That’s the big event of the winter, so nearly the whole town turns out for the reception. Mike was supposed to meet Hannah there, and specifically told her to save the first and last dance for him. But he never showed and didn’t even bother to call. No matter, Norman, Hannah’s other boyfriend, was there and offers to meet Hannah back at the Cookie Jar for some coffee. Hannah arrives, notices all the lights on at the Magnolia Blossom even though it’s well past regular business hours, and goes over to take a look. That’s when she discovers Shawna Lee’s dead body in the kitchen.

Mike and the rest of the Lake Eden police force come out to gather evidence and interview potential witnesses. Mike specifically tells Hannah not to interfere in the investigation, but of course she doesn’t listen. With the help of Lisa, sister Andrea, Norman, and mother Dolores, Hannah looks for clues, tries to pin down alibis of potential suspects, and eventually comes face-to-face with the killer before being rescued at the last second — again.

Liked:

• The only thing I like about this Hannah Swensen series is that the books are very short and easy to read. It only takes about a day or two to get through them, which is not much of a time investment at all.
• Check that. I also like the recipes, as some of them are actually quite tasty. Too bad I always end up needing a good natural acne treatment to get my skin back to normal after indulging in these rich treats!

Disliked:

• Joanne Fluke issues another cookie-cutter “murder mystery” with this book. Her formula goes like this: Big Lake Eden event that gets most of the townspeople in one place. Disliked/shady character and/or relative newcomer murdered. Hannah discovers body. Mike tells Hannah not to investigate. Hannah investigates. Hannah figures out who the murderer is. Hannah ends up alone with murderer and is about to be silenced (killed). Someone rescues Hannah. Only the details change with each book.
• I cannot stand how smug and hypocritical Hannah is. She loves correcting people about grammar, word usage, historical facts — anything and everything. If she’s that damn smart, why does she bake cookies for a living? Also, what gives her the right to be pissed off at Mike for seeing Shawna Lee on the side when HANNAH HAS NORMAN??? This has got to be the dumbest running plotline ever. Give me a break already!!!
• The murder didn’t take place until nearly 1/3 of the way through the book. Come on, Fluke! Your characters aren’t interesting enough to carry the story that far without any action!
• The murderer is almost always someone from outside Lake Eden. I’ve said it before about these books, but I’ll say it again. The town is just too small to have the killer be a local. Fluke would run out of characters that way. But at the same time, it makes solving the murders way too easy.
• So Dolores’ boyfriend Winthrop Harrington III was a fraud after all. He assumed a fake identity in order to scam rich old women out of their money, and was in on a plot with Vanessa. When he thought she double-crossed him, he shot her — not realizing until it was too late that he actually clipped Shawna Lee. Whatever. I just wrote this out for myself for future reference in case I ever need to recall who the killer was and why Shawna Lee was murdered. Read at your own risk!

Rating

The only reason I keep going with the Hannah Swesen mystery series is that I’ve got all the audiobooks on my iPod and can’t bear to just delete them without at least giving them a listen. Peach Cobbler Murder was not Fluke’s strongest effort, and I found myself only half-listening at times. Seriously, I’m amazed that Fluke has such wide readership that the Swensen series is allowed to continue. I give this book just 2 stars out of 5.

The stranger is a Mr. Jessop, who works for British intelligence. He has a proposition for Hilary. Seeing as how she wants to commit suicide anyway, Jessop asks her to serve her country first. There was another woman on the plane that went down, an Olive Betterton. Olive was on her way to meet her husband Thomas Betterton, a scientist who stole state secrets and defected somewhere behind the Iron Curtain. Jessop noticed that Hilary greatly resembles Olive, and wants her to pose as Mrs. Betterton in an effort to lead authorities to the missing husband. It’s a very dangerous mission, to be sure, but since Hilary doesn’t care to live anyway…. Hilary accepts the proposition.

From there, we see Hilary assume Olive’s identity, rendezvous with all the people that Olive was supposed to meet with (the people had never met Olive before; they just had a general physical description, which is why Hilary was able to pull it off), and eventually make it to Thomas Betterton, who, surprisingly enough, goes along with the ploy and recognizes Hilary as his wife.

It turns out that Thomas and Hilary are being held in a massive underground complex designed to be a self-sustaining society where the best and brightest scientists from all over the world could perform their experiments unhindered by government intervention. As they weren’t exactly experimenting with something as harmless as a colon cleanser formula or acne treatments, this secrecy was of the utmost importance. The man behind the complex, a billionaire Greek named Aristides, wants to corner the market on scientists so that he will essentially own all new advances. Everyone in the complex is basically being held as a prisoner, though, so only the most fanatical of the group are happy with the situation.

Fortunately, Jessop had other people watching Hilary, so the authorities are able to descend on the complex and rescue everyone involved.

Liked:

• I thought the scientific complex was sort of an interesting idea. Maybe that angle should have been explored more rather than having so much of the text focus on Hilary’s journey to the unknown destination.

Disliked:

• This isn’t Christie’s fault, but I recently read a book with a similar plot of someone assuming someone else’s identity to get to the bottom of a crime, so I wasn’t very impressed by the ruse here.
• There wasn’t much action in this book, nor was there very much suspense. It was pretty much just a ho-hum story that unfolded at a rather leisurely pace. I never felt that Hilary was truly in danger, so there was no tension along the way and that made the book drag in places.
• The ending seemed a bit abrupt to me. One minute, everyone’s stuck in the complex with no hope of escape, and the next, a delegation of officials comes for a tour and presto! everyone’s saved.

Rating:
I felt that Destination Unknown was a subpar Christie book. I don’t think that she writes very good thrillers at all, and prefer her straightforward murder mysteries a lot more. I don’t recommend this title at all, and give it just 2 stars out of 5.

No one knows quite what to make of Cora’s utterance, but since she has been thought tactful and indelicate since childhood, the tendency is for the family to laugh it off. After all, Cora’s an old woman now, and old women will say crazy things. But upon returning to her own home, Cora herself is brutally murdered with a hatchet, leading some in the family to think that she knew more about Richard’s death than she let on. Was Richard really murdered? And if so, did the killer then set his sights on Cora to silence her?

Mr. Entwhistle, the Abernethie family lawyer, thinks he owes it to his old friend Richard to find out what really happened. First, he involves the police and a private detective, but when they make no headway at all, he turns to old friend Hercule Poirot.

Unlike in his younger and more active days Poirot doesn’t do a heck of a lot of investigating in this one. In fact, only see him occasionally during the course of the book, as he pops up here and there to ask a few puzzling questions and then muse over the answers. He doesn’t interview all the suspects as he usually does, but instead sits back and “observes” them while they interact as a family. He still manages to solve the case in this way, however, because that’s what Poirot does!

Liked:

• The killer’s identity was hard to guess, even though there were a generous number of clues sprinkled throughout the story. Once the answer was revealed at the end, I had one of those, “Ah ha!” moments where I realized I should have known it was Miss Gilchrist all along.
• I thought the murder itself was interesting in the way that it piggybacked on Abernethie’s natural death. That was a nice bit of misdirection by Christie, and gave a different meaning to the “opportunity” portion of the crime — though the motive, of course, was generally the same.

Disliked:

• Poirot didn’t appear until 26 percent through the book (I read the Kindle edition, so I didn’t have page numbers to work with, just percentages), which was far too long of a wait for the detective. And then when he arrived, he was barely even involved. That made the book drag on a bit longer than usual for me, as Poirot is typically the main attraction rather than an afterthought.

Rating:

After the Funeral by Agatha Christie was a slightly above-average murder mystery. The crime itself was good, there were plenty of viable suspects, and the author really keeps you guessing until the end. However, this was advertised as a “Poirot novel”, and the fact that he doesn’t take as active a part as usual brought the book down a notch in my estimation. I therefore give it 3 stars out of 5.

This historical Amber Room — the deconstructed panels, at any rate — are the subject of Steve Berry’s novel. He essentially sets the book up as a treasure hunt, with four different groups of people all after the same thing: McCoy, a North Carolina redneck and professional treasure hunter; Christian Knoll, a professional “Acquisitor” or art thief who steals black market treasures that have themselves been stolen; Suzanne Danzer, another Acquisitor who works for a rival boss; and Rachel and Paul Cutler, the requisite “regular folks” who get in way over their heads.

Rachel’s father Karol Borya was held at a Nazi concentration camp during the war, and heard things about the location of the Amber Room. He and friend Danya Chapaev might be the only two living souls left who can point the way to the treasure. Knoll manages to track down Borya in Atlanta, and kills the man after not getting the right information out of him. Rachel had often heard her father speak about the Amber Room, and decides to go to Germany to try to track down Chapaev and perhaps learn something about the treasure. But she’s intercepted by Knoll, and is in great danger.

Paul, alerted to the situation by Danzer — who had followed Knoll — decides to go to Germany to protect Rachel. From there, the novel focuses on the race to track down clues to the Amber Room’s location. The characters all have their lives threatened at some point, as they encounter each other time and time again.

Liked:

• I’d never heard of the Amber Room prior to this novel, but its history sounded interesting. Maybe Berry should have just written a nonfiction work instead of trying to work everything into a thriller.

Disliked:

• I listened to the audiobook version. The reader used the same voice for Knoll and Rachel’s father, so in their scene together, it was hard to distinguish who was talking. Kind of strange, since one was an elderly Russian man and the other was a far younger German. Would they really have the same accent?! How annoying!
• It seems that Berry wrote this book with the film adaptation in mind. I mean, what was with all the title cards telling the time and place of the action for the upcoming scene? This was especially a problem at the beginning, where the setting shifted around so much that it was difficult to get a feel for the storyline and to get into the plot.
• I absolutely hated Berry’s writing style, particularly the way he had the German speakers say “und” instead of “and” every single time the word came up in their dialogues. Yeah, yeah, we get it: they’re German. Do you have to friggin’ bludgeon us over the head with that fact? If it were one character, I could excuse it as Berry wanting to give him/her a recognizable quirk. But, no. It was every. single. one. Again, totally annoying.
• And what was with Berry having Rachel refer to her father as “Daddy”? This was a 40-something woman, for god’s sake! Maybe she would call him that to his face, but certainly she wouldn’t refer to him as “Daddy” when talking to perfect strangers. It’s like I could hear Berry saying, “Oh, I’ve got a great idea about how to show that Rachel is a study in contrasts! On the one hand, she’ll be a tough-as-nails judge. On the other, I’ll have her call her father “Daddy” to show that there’s still a vulnerable little girl inside!” Gag me.
• There was absolutely no tension or sense of urgency in The Amber Room. There were all these different groups of people supposedly “racing” to find the treasure, but Berry provided exactly zero tension along the way. This was about as boring a treasure hunt book as I could possibly imagine.
• I thought it was totally laughable that Knoll was so preoccupied with sex throughout the book. You’d think he’d be focused on the task at hand, but no. And was the rape really necessary? WTF was that for? It shouldn’t have been included, IMO.
• God, I hate it when regular people like Rachel and Paul manage to outlast trained professionals like Knoll and Danzer. Yeah, right. And Rachel, who had never fired a gun in her life before, just happened to drill Knoll even though she was dazed and woozy from her beating/rape? Whatever.

Rating:
The Amber Room: A Novel by Steve Berry is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. It was filled with hateful, uninteresting, unbelievable characters, a plot that went nowhere and generated zero tension, and a B-movie conclusion that will surely cause copious amounts of eye-rolling. I give this book 1 star out of 5.

The only setting in this novel is the Lake Eden Community Center, where most of the residents have gathered for a special Pot Luck Christmas party to sample all the recipes that are going into the cookbook. The usual townsfolk are there, including Hannah, her sisters, Norman, Mike, Lisa, and many others.

New characters are included as well, which, for Fluke’s books, is a pretty clear indication that one of them will end up being the victim. This time around, the newbies are Lake Eden resident Martin Dubinski, and his new wife Brandi Wyen, a gorgeous Las Vegas “dancer”. Brandi shows up at the dinner wearing a $20,000 fur coat, a $50,000 diamond ring, and a very expensive necklace, which immediately inspires whispers and jealousy among the other women in attendance, including Martin’s ex-wife and ex-girlfriend. So when Hannah discovers Brandi’s body in the parking lot, with Dolores’ antique cake knife stuck through her heart, there are plenty of suspects.

Det. Mike Kingston is convinced that the murderer is still inside the community center, since the blizzard that night makes it impossible for anyone to leave. He decides to keep everyone in there while he conducts his investigation — without revealing that a murder has taken place. Hannah of course gets involved as well, and as usual, she solves the case well before Mike does.

Liked:

• I thought locking down the community center was a good idea. It added a sense of urgency to the proceedings and really gave the mystery an Agatha Christie feel.
• Hannah wasn’t quite as annoying in this book as she was in the last one. It’s important for her to be likable since she’s the main character. She was likable in the first couple books of the series, but had been going downhill after that. It was good to see her climb back up a notch or two here.

Disliked:

• I thought it was total b.s. that Fluke called the book Sugar Cookie Murder, and then passed the whole thing off as an accident! I don’t care that she made Brandi’s death an accident (actually, Lake Eden has far too many murders for a small town anyway), but she should have called the book something else. Sugar Cookie Incident. Sugar Cookie Mystery. Whatever, just not Sugar Cookie Murder.
• Sometimes Fluke’s writing style just irks me to no end. I cannot stand how she over-explains stuff. It’s as though she thinks her readers are idiots that need everything spelled out. For instance, one of the characters was talking to Hannah, and couldn’t think of the right word for what she wanted to say. So Hannah said, “Surreptitious?” And the other character replied, “Thanks, Hannah! I couldn’t think of the word that’s a nice way to say ‘sneaky’.” Uh… cue the eyeroll, please.
• I still don’t buy how Hannah manages to get everyone to spill their secrets to her. If someone like that ever came up to me and started demanding to know my whereabouts, I’d tell her to shove off and I’d wait for the real police to come. Even in this small town setting, I can’t believe that people open up to Hannah so willingly — especially about personal things like affairs and stuff.
• There wasn’t a whole lot of substance to this book. The body wasn’t found until 30% into the story (far too long for a mystery), and more than a quarter of the book was taken up by recipes.

Rating:

Joanne Fluke made some strides in Sugar Cookie Murder, but there are still too many shortcomings to allow me to give it a decent rating. I’ll continue listening to the audiobook versions because my library has them all, but I don’t really recommend them to others. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Jane Marple is approached by her friend Ruth Van Rydock, who tells Miss Marple that she’s worried about her sister Carrie Louise. Carrie Louise lives on a sprawling estate called Stonygates with her husband Lewis Serrocold, her daughter, granddaughter, and various other relatives. The estate is also home to a reform school of sorts, so there are numerous juvenile delinquents on the grounds as well. Ruth doesn’t have any solid evidence to think that Carrie Louise might be in danger, but she trusts her gut feeling and asks Miss Marple to spend some time at Stonygates to see what’s going on. Miss Marple agrees.

The amateur detective then starts interacting with all the other Stonygates inhabitants to get a feel for what they’re like and how they fit into the bigger picture of running the reform school. This takes a while since there are so many people involved, including Mildred Strete, Edgar Lawson, Julia Bellever, brothers Stephen and Alex Restarick, Gina and Wally Hudd, and Christian Gulbrandsen. All have their own little personality quirks, but seem to be decent people on the whole.

Then Christian Gulbrandsen is found murdered one evening after Edgar takes Lewis hostage in the library. Everyone’s attention was focused on Edgar and what he would do to Lewis, so when gunshots ring out in a different part of the house, they’re caught off guard. The police are called in to investigate, but while they take their sweet time with suspect interviews, Miss Marple goes to work putting together her own theories. Of course, she eventually figures out whodunit — though I hadn’t the slightest idea until the reveal!

Liked:

• Readers got a bit of Miss Marple’s backstory here, including the fact that she went to finishing school and that she traveled extensively in her youth.
• Even with so many characters involved, Christie manages to distinguish them enough that I was able to keep them straight (for the most part). I usually have trouble remembering who everyone is when such a large cast is involved, but not this time.
• The setup for the murder was clever. Like everyone else, I was sure that Lewis Serrocold was toast, but that turned out to be simple misdirection for the real killer.
• These novels are so much better when the featured detective plays a major role. Miss Marple was good here, and I rate this mystery second to The Body in the Library from the Marple novels I’ve read thus far.

Disliked:

• This story took a heckuva long time to get off the ground. The murder doesn’t take place until page 78 — almost 40% into the novel, so it was kind of hard to get involved in what was happening.
• The solution to the crime seemed rather far-fetched and implausible. I can understand the motive, of course, but the actual execution of the crime left a bit to be desired. Fake voices and play-acting? Really?
• It was never explained why Ruth or Christian had a feeling that Carrie Louise’s life was in danger. It seemed odd that these people suspected poisoning when Carrie Louise, an elderly woman, exhibited signs of rheumatism and so forth. That part was a bit of a stretch as well.

Rating:

They Do It With Mirrors doesn’t rank very high in the Christie canon, but as I said, I think it’s one of the stronger Miss Marple novels (not counting short story collections here). There are a few problems with the crime and solution, but not a bad read on the whole. I give it 3 stars out of 5.