Murder and Mayhem (Cryptic Cove Mystery Series #1)
Author: K.P. Stafford
3 out of 5 stars
After her parents die in a car crash, Alexis Danforth decides to move back to her hometown of Cryptic Cove and gets a job as the town constable’s secretary. Only weeks after her return, Earnest and Wilma Swanson disappear, and soon after their bodies are discovered in a shallow grave in the woods. With the constable out of his depth, Lexi begins helping with the investigation, but it becomes personal when her grandmother is suspected of the murders because she argued with them the day they vanished, and that Lexi might have helped her. Now Lexi has to find the real killer and clear her and her grandmother’s names, and find out if the suspicious but very attractive insurance agent might have anything to do with it.
I’ll start off by saying that I rated this book 3 out of 5 stars because it wasn’t particularly good, but there wasn’t anything terribly wrong with it either. The writing didn’t flow smoothly at all. There were multiple editing mistakes with either missing words or words being in the wrong order in the sentence. Then at the end of chapter 3, she considers following someone, but it never says if she did or not, which I assume means she didn’t. But why include it at all then? It also wasn’t clear how much time had passed since her parents had died and how long she had been in town before deciding to stay and get a job.
I thought the characters and their interactions were fairly realistic. Lexi and her best friend, Peyton, act how I would expect for their mid-twenties age. Despite how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other, they reconnect immediately and are good friends. Lexi is determined to find the killer, and Peyton is happy to help her. The constable is a good man, but he’s in over his head and lacks the experience to handle a murder case.
The mystery was good. There was a piece of information that made it obvious who the killer was and why, but then a twist was thrown in where someone else was killed. There was also another nice twist at the end.
Overall, it’s just an okay book. I wouldn’t really recommend it, but it was free and a quick read.
Current price through Amazon Kindle: $0
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01F0L5B2K
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