Review: A Tangled Mess
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 02 5, 2013
I was very disappointed with Tangled to Death.  I've read other books by this author and enjoyed them.  This one is surprisingly amateurish compared to her other works.The main character, Katie Greer, moves to a randomly selected a small town in New Hampshire to escape her painful past.  Katie finds the dead body of Flora Middly, the nasty town busy-body, on her porch one day.While this could have been a fresh approach at a murder-in-a-small-town story line, the author chooses to go down stale, well-worn paths.  Of course, Katie and the handsome police detective investigating the crime alternately hate each other and passionately kiss, like characters in a bad bodice-ripper romance novel.  Of course, Katie and her friend Gretchen feel compelled to investigate, breaking into the dead woman's house to find clues (as we all know, breaking and entering is perfectly fine as long as the main character does it to solve the crime).  And of course, Katie and Gretchen find the dead woman's diary so they can solve the case (because we all know the police can't possibly be competent enough to find such things).In addition to the "of courses", the author relies on coincidence - pardon me for being cryptic, but I'm trying not to spoil the plot - what are the odds that someone from Katie's past will just happen to be related to someone in this small town??Yawn.A very disappointing, predictable, trite read.