Review

The holiday season is here, and IRS Special Agent Tara Holloway is way behind on her Christmas shopping. It’s lucky for her, then, that her newest case calls for some undercover work at the Chisholm Trail Mall.  Tara’s certain that a jewelry wholesaler named Nadine Gramercy is guilty of tax fraud, and she’s pretty sure all the evidence she needs to nail Nadine can be found in the books of the mall’s jewelry store – she just needs enough time to work her investigative magic. And if she manages to do a little mall-employee matchmaking while she’s at it, all the better, right?

Death, Taxes, and Mistletoe Mayhem is a “special holiday novella” written by Diane Kelly, author of the Tara Holloway Novels, and honestly, I wish I’d never read it.  Death, Taxes, and Mistletoe Mayhem is lacking everything that makes Kelly’s full-length books so enjoyable to read.

This novella appears to be a backdoor pilot for a new series Kelly’s writing that stars Fort Worth Police Officer Megan Luz and her K-9 partner, Brigit. As such, the story’s told not just from Tara’s perspective, but from the perspectives of Megan and Brigit, as well. Now, I’m okay with multiple narrators in theory, but in order for that storytelling style to work, the narrators must be compelling in equal measure. Such is not the case with Death, Taxes, and Mistletoe Mayhem. Megan Luz is not merely less likable than Tara Holloway – she borders on insufferable. She’s clumsily introduced, her narration is bursting at the seams with artless exposition, and Kelly’s saddled her with a myriad of traits and eccentricities that are supposed to make her unique and endearing, but actually serve to make you want to lock her in a supply closet.  And re: Brigit, as a general rule, I hate it when authors narrate from an animal’s perspective. There are a select few who can pull it off, but Kelly’s not one of them – at least not in this novella. 

As for the mystery, I don’t really feel like there is one. The crime Tara’s investigating is interesting, but it’s hardly the focus of the story. Instead, the reader’s forced to endure scene after scene about Tara and Megan’s plan to pair up a lonely Victoria’s Secret employee with a jilted mall Santa. I’m all for sentimentality at Christmastime, but if you’re writing a crime novel (or novella), that sentimentality should be in service of the plot, and this most decidedly is not. Throw in a ridiculous, farcical, Keystone-Cops-style ending, and you have in Death, Taxes, and Mistletoe Mayhem a product true Tara Holloway fans should avoid.