Review: Underdeveloped cozy
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 11, 2013
This is the type of mystery I normally enjoy, and it seemed to have all the right ingredients.  But I must admit it was not all I had hoped it would be. The plot was okay, but the manner in which it was presented had a remedial reader feel to it. Things happen and unfold for some 200+ pages, all of which we are either directly told by the author or indirectly told via the dialogue of characters, but we are seldom shown enough to be enabled to reach any conclusions on our own. Throughout this book the reader is spoonfed far too much. Yes, the plot is simply told, but simplicity doesn't require the elimination of those important (and enjoyable) descriptive elements which help set mood, develop a better sense of time and place, and enable the reader to better (if not fully) visualize that which the author envisions.The very television programs to which the author refers in her introduction and whose mood she lovingly tries to mimic are so beloved, not only because of their interesting plots, but because of the atmospheric, mood-setting WAY those plots unfold; that same atmosphere is NOT recreated in this book. If a reader has the same warm fuzzies and/or creepy feelings reading this as watching "Midsomer Murders," it can only be because those feelings have been "carried over" by the reader from that series to this book and imposed upon it by the reader; otherwise, they just aren't there.In other words this novel comes across stylistically unpolished, a skeleton that needs to be fleshed out. This barebones approach may be okay in short stories, such as those found in "The Claresby Collection" by Daphne Coleridge (which I mention because its style, setting and characters have much in common with this). But in a longer work such as this, that same sparse, unadorned, story-TELLING style quickly becomes rather tiresome.Despite my criticism, the book is not without merit as a lightweight, mildly-entertaining, escapist cozy mystery, and at this low price, it is certainly worth acquiring. Those who greatly enjoyed the first two in this series will very likely also enjoy this one. (Indeed, judging by the many rave reviews, they do.) But I guess it just isn't my cup of tea.