Category: Contemporary

Cast Iron Alibi by Victoria Hamilton

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Cast Iron Alibi (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery Book 9)Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: A Vintage Kitchen Mystery #9
Publication Date: 11/5/19

I thoroughly enjoyed this addition to the series. In fact, I’ve enjoyed the whole series. It has been fun watching Jaymie grow and mature, find out who she is, find love and marriage and even embrace motherhood. The mysteries are always interesting, complicated enough to keep you interested, and convoluted enough to keep you guessing.

Jaymie Leighton Mueller is looking forward to a class reunion of sorts with several of her college friends. In the fifteen years since college, they have gotten together for a camping trip almost every year – except they have missed the last few years – life just interfered. Now, they are back on track and Jaymie can’t wait. Jaymie has, as we all do, forgotten the stresses of the relationships and has romanticized and idealized them instead.

The gathering this year will be a bit bittersweet for Jaymie because her beloved husband, Jakob and her stepdaughter Jocie will be in Poland for the ten days of Jaymie’s gathering. Jocie’s mother was Polish and Jakob and Jaymie want her to have that family in her life.

The gathering of Jaymie, Gabriela, Brandi, Rachel, Melanie, and Rachel – all of the friends from college – is joined by two unexpected guests, Courtney and Tiffany. One was invited by Brandi and the other invited herself. Not a particularly auspicious beginning for their adventure.

It seems that there are troubles in everybody’s marriages – well except Jaymie’s – and husbands show up to shadow the ladies. None of them is welcome and tensions tighten.

When a murder and arson occur, it seems that at least some of the ladies know the victim – and he isn’t a very savory victim, to say the least. The police quickly arrest the man’s friend – and it sure seems he could be guilty – but – Jaymie isn’t convinced. So, she’s off sleuthing out the facts – she either wants to be satisfied that the man who was arrested is the perpetrator – or she wants to find out who really did it. Could it be the husband of one of her friends?

I hope you’ll enjoy this well-plotted, well-written mystery as much as I did. I hope you’ll also enjoy meeting the ladies because we might see more of one of them in the future.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Beyond Cutting by Vicki Clifford

On By BarbaraIn Barb's Reviews, Contemporary, Mystery1 Comment

Beyond Cutting (Viv Fraser, #1)Series: Viv Fraser #1
Publication Date: 2/20/14
Number of Pages: 242

** 3.5 Rounded Up **

This was my first book by a new-to-me author. It is a very diverting mystery, but, in my view, it isn’t a cozy mystery which is more what I was looking for – it is darker and grittier. Be aware that the book is written in third person/present tense – and it took me a while to become accustomed – however, once I did it wasn’t a problem. I do understand that all of the other books in the series are written in third person/past tense – which is more what most of us are accustomed to.

Vivian (Viv) Fraser is a hairdresser/journalist/Dr. of Anthropology and she’s extremely sensitive when anyone refers to her as ‘just’ a hairdresser. She very quickly takes offense. She’s alone and finally beginning to come to grips with the death of her lover, Dawn. She’s finally begun to feel pangs of attraction again, but I can’t decide whether she’s more attracted to Sal Chapman (she’s a profiler at the police headquarters) or DI Marcus (Mac) Marconi (he’s the inspector investigating the case). At any rate, I had a hard time warming up to Viv – she was a little too ‘in your face’ and didn’t appear to be a very caring type of person. Perhaps I’ll find her to be different in the next book I read, but, in this one, I didn’t particularly care for her.

Juliet (Jules) Muir, editor at a national newspaper, and an old friend of Viv’s calls to ask Viv to take on a writing/investigative assignment. The task is to investigate the circumstances around a missing young man, Andrew Douglas, to find him if possible and to write an article for the newspaper. Jules asked Viv to take the assignment because she was familiar with the after-hours gay scene in Edinburgh and would be able to move freely in that environment.

As Viv investigates, she finds herself investigating more than just a missing young man. There are drug dens, murders, sex trafficking – pretty much everything on the darker side of life. People are not who they seem to be and it reaches right up into the affluent sections of society. There were many villains involved with many different parts of the crime and I didn’t feel ‘finished’ with a couple of them. The murderer came out of left field – you definitely won’t guess who it is because you don’t really meet them until they are revealed.

The bottom line for me is that it is a good mystery, well written, well-plotted, but it wasn’t my normal cup-of-tea. I will try another book or two in the series to see how things progress and whether I can come to like Viv.