When I bought this book at a group book signing at ABC Books in 2022, I said I picked up all the first books in Ms. Keene’s multiple series that I found. And although that was true for Finding Lizzy Smith which I read in 2023, shortly after the purchase, this is the second book in the Arizona Summers mystery series (which might actually be set in Missouri, as this one is, in the summer). Who knows what Tattered Wings, the third of her books I bought that day, might hold?
At any rate: This book is set in a small, fictional town on a lake in mid or southwest Missouri called Moonstone Lake (in Catoosa County, a fictional county) where the main character, Ary, is the (adopted) daughter of a popular 80-something (the new 60) proprietor (retired) of a popular restaurant. The plot is that a friend of Ary’s comes home one night to find that her ex-husband, who has been missing or in prison for five years, has been stabbed outside her apartment. The friend turns to Liz for help, but the body disappears. And the man’s last words indicate the money is his. So they try to figure out what he meant before the murderers strike again.
To be honest, the plot is a little contrived, but this little cozy of a mystery (with recipes from the restaurant in the back) really is more about the relationships of the main character and her adopted mother and aunt and the townspeople. She’s getting serious with a town cop, and her friend is getting serious with a deputy. Her adopted mother gets arrested for running an illegal gambling ring–she and some other octagenarians were playing poker, but one man lost big and his wife dropped the dime on them. Also, she’s about to celebrate her 81st birthday which is always a big production in town.
So most of the book’s 200+ page run time describes this, and the actual murder is secondary. And, boy howdy, the book could have used proofreading. Some extraneous punctuation, some missing punctuation, spelling a main character’s name (Lewis versus Louis) differently including a switch in successive paragraphs…. The things I criticize in James R. Wilder’s books are also present here. But:
The four of us left Moonstone Lake at noon. The Catoosa County Sheriff’s office agreed to patrol for the weekend.
The author knows the difference between town police and county sheriffs and how they sometimes help each other.
At any rate, I have one more book by this author which I have already picked up to complete the set I bought. But, boy howdier, I bought a lot of books by local authors that day.
