Book 65, 2018

[chez_jae]

Death By Pumpkin Spice by Alex Erickson

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



Last night, I finished slogging through Death by Pumpkin Spice, which is the third installment in Alex Erickson's "Bookstore Cafe" mystery series, starring Krissy Hancock. Since I haven't read any other books in the series, I was going in blind, but I don't feel as that I was missing anything.

Krissy is asked to go to a Halloween costume party at one of the ritziest homes in Pine Hills. She's afraid she won't fit in, but she learns that a few other people she knows will be there. The night of the party, there is a torrential downpour that makes the roads impassable, thereby stranding the guests in the Yarborough home. When one of the guests is murdered, Krissy is ecstatic to be asked by Officer Paul Dalton, whom she had a fizzled relationship with, to assist him until other police officers can arrive on the scene. Krissy is torn between helping Paul and still trying to spend time with her date, Dr Will Foster.

Many of the well-heeled guests are acting suspiciously, and none of them appreciates being questioned by either Paul or Krissy. When her ex shows up, wanting another chance, Krissy's night goes from bad to worse. Now the race is on to find a killer before everyone is allowed to leave, but Krissy is determined to find out whodunnit before the night is over.

Well now. For one thing, the trope of everyone being confined to a small space during a murder investigation has been over done. For another, some of the guests said or did the most bizarre things, presumably as a red herring for the amateur sleuth and the reader. However, the biggest disappointment was Krissy herself.

Seldom have I ever read a book where the main character was this utterly obnoxious. Krissy is so smug in her belief that the crime cannot possibly be solved without her assistance that it made me want to gag. She barged in when Paul was questioning suspects, she basically accused several people of being the killer, based on her own theories but without any proof, and she refused to listen when she was instructed to stay in one area or out of another one. In fact, she sneaked into the room where the body was, ducking under Paul's make-shift "crime scene" tape, to get another peek at the body, because of course the police must have missed a vital clue that only she could detect if only she could examine the body herself. After that, she literally tore down some other "crime scene" tape to access a stairwell so she could check out Mrs Yarborough's bedroom again, and all the while, my eyebrows were climbing higher and higher into my hairline. I mean, wow, nothing like trampling all over a crime scene just because you think you're smarter than anyone else looking into the murder. Finally, when Krissy had her big epiphany the following day, she rushed to the police station to let them know, yet she refused to tell them what she'd found/figured out because, and I shit you not, she wanted to be allowed to go along and question the suspect and be there for that "Ah ha!" moment. She was an utter glory hog! I just did not like her. At all.

On top of that, she was a total Mary Sue. I mean, really. Paul still wanted her, she still wanted Paul, but Will also wants her, and she wants Will and omg she just isn't sure. And then there's the creepy, stalker ex who claims to still want her, too. He was another completely obnoxious character.

Finally, judging the book by its cover, I assumed the bookstore/cafe cat would figure into the narrative more, but he was giving only a nod in passing, as was Krissy's cat. The cats who got the most airtime were two at the party house, and that's not saying much.

Favorite line: "Shouldn't you be back home ruining someone else's life?"

I spent several hours reading this that I will never get back. Characters were two-dimensional, including Krissy, and the plot twists were confusing rather than dazzling. Needless to say, I will not be seeking out any others in the series, and I sincerely doubt I'll look to read anything else by this author.

One star:

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