Book 10, 2024
Neptune's Children by Mary Bowers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Today is a scheduled day off work (federal holidays, for the win!), and I used it to finish reading Neptune's Children by Mary Bowers. This is the 14th book in the "Tropical Breeze" cozy mystery series. The main character is usually Taylor Verone, but this particular story followed several different characters and was all written in third-person pov.
A local reporter turns up dead after infiltrating and investigating a cult-like group just outside of Tropical Breeze--the third mysterious death among Neptune's Children. Taylor's lover, Michael, is especially concerned because Taylor herself has been spending time at The Quayside and refuses to come home. Taylor is keen to find out what happened to her friend, but when other people from Tropical Breeze show up, she realizes they have a better chance at fitting in and getting answers. Taylor reluctantly returns home and tries to dig up additional information on her own. It will take her cat, Bastet, to point her in the right direction in order to find out, once and for all, what is going on with Neptune's Children.
This was all over the place. It made sense as it went along, but getting the story from so many points of view was less than ideal. Taylor barely had any "screen time" at all, which was disappointing. The ending and the explanation reminded me of an episode of Scooby Doo.
Favorite lines:
♦ "Even your cat wants you to come home."
♦ "Maybe I should have asked the cat."
♦ Ed was still driving his 1991 Geo Metro, after all these years, and Taylor was beginning to think that the greatest paranormal mystery in Ed's world was how he managed to keep that car running.
♦ The whole meeting seemed to be getting away from him, as if he'd expected to be planning a surprise party and suddenly everybody was plotting an assassination.
There was also an exchange over the course of several paragraphs that amused and alarmed me:
♦ "Try 1111."
♦ "The PIN is 1111. Listen carefully, yourself."
♦ "Is it 1111?"
I've been loving the books in the Tropical Breeze series, but not this one. Average score of three.