Hosting an award-winning novelist is quite a Christmas coup for the Ashton Corners Mystery Readers and Cheese Straw Society. But when he’s murdered in Lizzie Turner’s house, she’s got a holiday homicide on her hands …

For their very first guest author event, most of the book club members can’t wait to pull out all the stops in Southern hospitality. But for Lizzie, Derek Alton is nothing but trouble—from his massive ego to his smarmy moves. When he’s found murdered in her living room, it seems someone decided that this womanizing writer would be better off dead than read.

After suspicion falls on Lizzie’s friend, she and her fellow book club members discover that Derek wasn’t who he pretended to be. Cracking this case means going up against Lizzie’s boyfriend, police chief Mark Dreyfus, and unearthing a novel’s worth of nasty secrets. And as they get closer to uncovering Derek’s scandalous final manuscript, someone hiding in plain sight is out to write finis to Lizzie’s sleuthing for good…

Review

Lizzie Turner and the other members of her book club agree to allow visiting author Derek Alton speak at their next meeting. Lizzie reluctantly accepts a request from Derek to discuss the itinerary before the meeting. It doesn’t take long for Lizzie to discover Derek is a self-centered womanizer. However, she is still shocked when Derek is shot, right through her living-room window! Lizzie and the police are perplexed over who could have known Derek would be at her house that also had a motive to kill him. Lizzie’s boyfriend is the police chief, but one of his main questions is why Lizzie was entertaining another man in her living room! Mark wants an explanation, but doesn’t want her help with the investigation. In spite of his wishes, Lizzie decides to try to uncover some likely suspects and motives. She realizes she must be on to something, because it becomes clear her questions have put her own life is in danger.

Books play a large role in the story, which I love. Each chapter cleverly begins with a quote from a current or classic mystery novel and is related to the events of that chapter. Lizzie’s job as a reading specialist give her an interesting background and subplots as she becomes involved in tutoring students on the side to help their reading skills. I like the balance between Lizzie’s detecting and the other activities going on in her life. I also like her fellow book club members Molly and Andie, but not a lot of details are given about the others in the club. The supporting characters are interesting, but I wish I could have gotten to know some of them better. For example, one of the police officers on the case, Amber Craig, comes across as mean and hard-nosed at first, but she proves to be fair and becomes a likeable supporting character that I would like to see more of in future installments.

The book is set in Alabama, but I don’t get much of a sense of the southern setting, apart from a few “y’alls” sprinkled in some of the conversations. Another downside to the book is that Lizzie, who is very book smart, doesn’t always use common sense. She is often slow to catch on to some of the clues she discovers. Even when she gets shot at, she continues to put herself in danger by asking questions of possible suspects, without anyone backing her up. This becomes frustrating and unbelievable.

My favorite part of this book and the previous book in this series are the reading lists of Lizzie and the other book club members. Five mysteries, representing each character’s current reading list, are listed for each book club member. The friends have diverse tastes, from Agatha Christie to Robert B. Parker, so you just may find something to add to your own reading list. Fans of Denise Swanson will like Lizzie, as well as author Erika Chase’s writing style.

Reviewed by Christine K.

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