Books 80-82
Case of the Bleus: A Cheese Shop Mystery by Korina Moss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn't realize this was the fourth book in the series but it made entry into the series easy which is what I love about most mystery series. Willa and her friends/employees Mrs. Schultz and Adam find themselves in the thick of another murder. Willa's former boss/mentor, Max, has passed away leaving behind his Church Bleu, a blue cheese that everyone loves and the cheesemongers assume will be worth a fortune if only if they knew where he aged the cheese (as aging is the key to cheese). Max didn't leave Willa anything in his will but he did leave things to her other coworkers, Kendall, Claire, Pepper and Freddie who are all there hoping to get the recipe to the cheese. His estranged daughter, Maxine, gets his cheese shop but since she sees her dad as loving cheese more than her, she merely wants to sell it.
However no one gets the recipe, everyone is on the hunt for it. When the cheesemonger everyone thought would get the recipe dies of an allergic reaction and it was no accident, Willa is drawn into finding who killed her - and to help clear the reputation of her friend whose wine was used to do the killing.
I liked Willa and her friends. I guessed most of the red herrings but not necessarily the killer as everyone had a motive, too many motives really. I have to say I wasn't a giant fan of the ending but it makes sense. I found it annoying, however.
the one thing I did like was Willa could admit she was wrong. There is a bit of a romance developing between her and the lead detective (my favorite type of amateur sleuth story because it makes sense as to why their interference is allowed) but he asks her to not do something and she does anyhow. She doesn't protest or throw a fit over him being angry with her which I've seen too many times in other books. She isn't happy about it but she knows she's in the wrong so kudos for portraying that in a believable way. I'm curious to see where this series goes.
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Queen of the Night: A Novel of Suspense by J.A. Jance
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This one was one of those I didn't know was four books into a series but I didn't feel too lost. It was written as a tribute to Tony Hillerman (with the Native American connection you'd expect). It put me in mind of Columbo in that you know who did it and it's more about how the detectives do their thing.
It was also one I came close to DNFing. It's a very slow starter but that wasn't my issue Each chapter is long and multiple point of views per chapter, each one well marked with who, where, when and even temperature (why I don't know. I kept expecting temperature to play a role as a result but it never did). In the beginning there were about 8 different points of view to get through (less after the murders)
The title refers to a night blooming cactus that blooms one night a year giving us both the festival view of it and the Indigenous people's view of the same. We have the Walker family including their adopted Native daughter, Lani who is a doctor and his mentee Dan Pardee, also Native (but Apache who were the historic enemies of the local group which much is made of in this) who is fresh from Iraq and now working with an all Indigenous branch of border patrol.
Before long we have a violently orphaned Native girl that Dan and Lani have to help and keep safe while the detectives try to find who killed four people, the person this four year old witnessed fleeing the crime scene that took her mom.
Once we get to the murder the story moves much quicker with a lot of personal side jaunts, some of which are a little annoying (like Lani's mom who thinks she's got dementia with zero testing and basically self diagnosing and plans to die instead of you know asking her doctor daughter who knows instantly what it actually is). I was also a little creeped out with the insta-love, insta-marriage ending but that's me.
It was overall not bad and I might even read others in this series but I'm not sure.
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Malum by Stacy Bender
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This self pubbed gas light fantasy has some very fun ideas on one hand and some lacking character development on the other. Josephine has had a hard life. Her mother hated her because of her paranormal abilities and her gambler father has sold her to a wealthy monster of a man who wants her for his homosexual son as a beard (and full on plans to rape her to get the 'grandkids' he wants)
She's saved by by her bohemian aunt Sylvia who shares her gifts. Once in an unnamed city (I'm assuming London though the only thing rooting this in our world are Beethoven and Rossini and Cockneys and in a way that threw me), Sylvia (who was an actress who married well) confronts the man Josephine was purchased by to say in no uncertain terms would this happen unless it was Josephine's will (why her husband is never seen until the last chapter is never explained). Needless to say this doesn't go down well.
In the mean time, workers accidentally release a demon and Josephine's powers awakens all the gargoyles in the city. They are the ones who have helped the heroes fight demons over mankind's history. Josephine with her serious inferiority complex takes a lot of prodding from Sylvia to engage in any of this (and she spends half the book hiding the gargoyles from her aunt).
Into this comes Oscar Bennet, an eccentric inventor and his friend Edward Blair. Oscar has many inventions using new tech: electricity. Oscar takes the existence of gargoyles rather well. They plan to stop the demon even as it (and Mr. would-be rapist) try to stop them.
As I said, the story's plot is an interesting one and it is entertaining. However, there isn't much in the way of character development for anyone, especially Josephine. She ends up the same at the end as she started. Mousy, without any real agency. Without her aunt, she'd be nothing. She doesn't really stand on her own two feet.
The other thing that bothered me was the choices made, two very small things really but they nagged at me. For one, the man who helped free the demon didn't need to be so nasty. If he lasted more than one chapter or purposely freed the demon maybe I could get it but no, that's not how it went so why work in derogatory comments about Jews, Blacks and the Irish into one chapter? Also part of Sylvia's theater craft is to make herself unrecognizable for her duties in seances so she chooses to look Moorish. I'm like of all things to pretend to be of color (which granted in the last 1800s no one would have thought twice)
It does wrap up nicely and sets up the possibility of more. If there is, I hope Josephine has more agency.
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