Rating: 3 1/2 ♥’s
Published: April 11, 2023
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 263
Description: Sara Cain isn’t your typical thirty-two-year-old woman. Murder detective by day, writer and… sleuth by night? Just as long as there’s enough coffee to keep her going…
When her first novel gives her trouble, Sara goes for a walk to clear her writer’s block and ends up stumbling right into a real-life murder mystery. Magnum, an adventurous beagle, comes running off leash toward her in the local park, and she returns him home only to find his master dead on the entry floor.
Cliff Cunningham was a championship bowler with a mean streak and a temper, and police are pegging his Golden Pin bowling trophy as the murder weapon. While any number of people could have clocked a strike by knocking him on the noggin, the prime suspect is a friend of Sara’s mother—and she expects Sara to prove the woman’s innocence. A tall order, as the case isn’t officially hers and belongs to a rival detective.
But a promise is a promise, and Sara soon finds herself sleuthing undercover—and off the clock—in a world of polyester shirts and rental shoes. It’s not all bad, though, as she’s taking her friend and partner Sean McKinley along for the ride. They are better together than they’ve ever been split, and they’re not amateurs at finding killers.
Despite being up against small-town hijinks and colorful characters who threaten to roll their efforts into the gutter, they are having fun. That is, until they get close to the killer and a dangerous twist puts their lives at risk.
I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I was excited to see that Carolyn was starting a new series and was glad I got to read an ARC of it. Overall I thought it was a fun read. I don’t think it beats her other series, but it was still worth a read. I am intrigued to see where it goes from here with how it ended, I have an idea that they will break out on their own and do private investigating. I think the thing that just felt rushed to me was the romance. They went from not wanting to date because they worked together to getting engaged all of a sudden at the end, which I feel only happened because he got lots of money and they were like we don’t need work. I felt like it could have evolved more and been a little more realistic about them ending up together.
I thought the storyline was fun and it had a good mystery to it. I did end up picking the wrong person on who was the killer so that was a nice surprise to be wrong! I liked that they had fun disguises when they were undercover. The story had adventure and humor and some slight romance. I am hoping that as the story continues we get some more background on the characters. I weirdly want to know why Sean was so weird about the dog and the dog hair, I feel there is a story there. I thought the dog was a cute add and I hope he gets to tag along more in the next book.
The writing was well done and the story flowed nicely. It was a quick read which was nice because you didn’t have all of these random things that veer you away from the mystery. It is instead focused on finding out who the killer was, and actually, there are two cases being solved in this one. One isn’t as much a part of the story but I was intrigued still by how they figured that one out as well.
I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to seeing where the series goes from here and what mystery Sara and Sean will get to solve and what their disguises will be this time.
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