Murder Is Binding by Lorna Barrett
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Book Reviews of Murder Is Binding
Book Review: A fun read...looking forward to the next book in series..
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a really fun mystery. The characters are unique, and the coziness of the small town adds to the flavor of the book.Book Review: Enjoyable book
Summary: 5 Stars
I really enjoyed this book. This is the 1st in this new series. I will read the next book in series when it is out.Book Review: If you love a cozy mystery pick this up.
Summary: 5 Stars
If you love a cozy mystery add this to your list. Lorna Barrett is great!Book Review: mystery
Summary: 4 Stars
MURDER IS BINDING---Lorna Barrett (Berkley ISBN 978-0-21958-4) This is the first in the Booktown Mystery series and includes recipes. I will read the next one. For you cat lovers there is Miss Marple, Tricia's cat.
The small town of Stoneham, New Hampshire, is somewhat like the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. There are a number of bookstores there hoping to attract tourists and near-by senior citizen places and help the local economy. Protagonist Tricia Miles, the owner of Haven't Got A Clue is a newcomer, she's been there six months, and was welcomed by most people. She paid realtor Bob Kelly top dollar for her rent. Doris Gleason who owns the Cookery, the cookbook store next door to Tricia's, tells her she isn't happy that Trisha did that. Her lease is up, and she is afraid her rent will go up. She also shows her the rare cookbook that she has in a case. She bought it from Winnie Wentworth the town's bag lady. She isn't exactly a bag lady but does live out of her '93 Cadillac Seville. She buys items, including books, from different types of sales and turns around and tries to sell them to the bookstores and other places.
Tricia's sister Angelica Prescott is getting divorced and is trying to figure out what to do with her life. She surprises Trish by coming to town to visit. Trish is anything but thrilled. They meet up for dinner and come back to Tricia's apartment which is about her store, to show Angelica what it is like. As they get out of the car, Angelica smells smoke. Tricia realizes that it is the Cookery that is burning. She has Angelica call 911, and she rushes into the store. She stops the carpet from smoking and notices that the case with the rare cookbook is empty. She finds Doris with a knife in her back. Stoneham has been voted the safest town around and was scheduled to get an award for it. They haven't had a murder in ten years. There goes the town's reputation.
For some reason Sheriff Wendy Adams doesn't like Tricia and won't give up the idea that Tricia killed Doris. The sheriff is up for reelection. Is that the reason she is out to solve this murder so fast, or are there others? When someone dies in a car accident, the sheriff makes sure the brakes weren't cut by Tricia. When other things happen, Tricia knows she has to solve Doris' murder to save herself from going to prison. Tricia has her own idea of who may be the killer. Even the town's newspaper doesn't go lightly on Tricia as well as some residents.
One other problem Tricia is having along with the other booksellers, is that someone is placing leaflets into the books advertising a nudist camp. No one can seem to catch the person.
I really enjoyed retired Mr. Everett He would be at Haven't Got A Clue's door when the store opened and would be the last to leave. He would only have one cup of their complimentary coffee and a few cookies. He would place a bookmark in the book he was reading and then put it back on a shelf. Sometimes he would do so little odds and ends there like make the coffee.
Book Review: If Only Stoneham Were a Real Place
Summary: 4 Stars
My six-year-old grandson actually picked this book out for me and told me that it looked good. He was right! That child is a chip right off the block. I looked over his choice and saw that it was about a bookseller that specialized in mystery books and it was set in a small New England town that had based its whole economy on bibliotourism. Stoneham sounds like just the sort of town where I could spend many happy days not to mention many thousands of dollars. I knew right from the start that this would be a book that I was going to like.
As with the first book of any series this one spends a lot of time introducing the reader to the characters and although a few of them do seem to be a bit flat I imagine that they will flesh out some more as the series progresses. It is a delicate line that an author walks in a first in the series book in trying to give the characters enough space to develop without completely losing the plot in the process and this author has done this in quite an acceptable manner. In particular I enjoyed the interaction between the story's main character Tricia and her sister Angelica who shows up in town unannounced and really gets on Tricia's nerves, at least at first. As the story progresses Angelica grows on her sister and on the reader as well as bit-by-bit the reason for her visit becomes apparent.
It may well be this author's background at work but I found that this book actually held to the plot more so than a lot of cozies and that may be why some readers might find the characters a tad shallow. This book was less character driven and more plot driven than a lot of books in this genre but for me at least this method worked well and I found that I very much enjoyed this book. I must admit that I did find some annoying grammatical errors in this book especially when it came to comma usage. I suspect that in some new school of thought that has come into vogue since my school days that this type of comma usage is preferred but it doesn't read well and often took my mind away from the story at hand. Having found this same thing in another Berkley book that I have recently completed I also suspect that this is the work of an editor rather than the author but wherever it comes from it did take away from the overall very positive feeling that I have for this book.
Beyond the grammatical errors though I really did like this book and enjoyed my trip to "Booktown" a great deal. The mystery flowed well, the plot was solid and believable and the ending was quite exciting. I just wish that Miss Marple the cat had been given a more prominent role. She reminded me very much of my own cat with an attitude.