Customer Reviews

Vi Agra Falls: A Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery (Bed-And-Breakfast Mysteries)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You are going to want to settle back in a comfy chair and keep reading once you begin Mary Daheim's Vi-Agra Falls, the newest addition to her popular Bed&Breakfast series. In any series a regular reader will have personal favorites. Vi-Agra Falls is most definitely in my top three!

Judith Flynn, owner of the Hillside Manor, her old family home turned B&B, has a problem. A big problem. Her husband Joe's former wife, Vivian, is back in the neighborhood stirring things up as only she can do. This time Vivian is not just an aggravation because of the relationship. She has a new young stud husband in tow and has mysteriously inherited mega-bucks from ....well...you have to read it. It's quite an amazing back story.

With her new wealth Vivian buys the house next door to hers and wants to tear down both her home and the neighboring house in the quiet, secluded cul de sac to build a high rise condo building. The entire neighborhood goes into an uproar of disbelief over the mere thought of the horrible impact the condo would have on their friendly little corner of the world.

On page 69, after throwing a large, wild, and very noisy outdoor party in her front yard, the inebriated party girl, Vivian, finds an unidentified dead body in her back yard! She naturally shows up at Judith's door seeking Joe's help and support only to pass out on the sofa. What could be more intriguing than stunned disbelief, confusion, a dead body, your spouse's unconscious ex-wife and a skeptical 911 operator all on one page? Fortunately, Judith and cousin Renie have had a little experience with dead bodies and solving crimes.

Judith soon finds the already interesting neighborhood filling with a crazy cast of characters, all of whom have their own agenda. You will find the characters easy to keep straight and the action non-stop!

This is just the beginning of 326 pages of twists and turns that will keep your attention and keep you laughing until the very end. It reminds me of another of my favorites, Daheim's "Major Vices" which was one of the early books in the series.

Mary Daheim is in top form with "Vi-Agra Falls". It's a must read.....and a keeper!

Get your own copy now...and put it on your list of gifts to give readers during the coming holidays. They will love it!

In Seattle, Judith McMonigle Flynn owns and manages the Hillside Manor bed-and-breakfast. However, domestic tranquility and bliss vanish rather quickly when Joe's former wife "Her" with the ample cleavage as always openly on display, nouveau riche Vivian, arrives.; Accompanying her is her much younger boy toy spouse, former minor league baseball player Billy "Blunder" Buss.

However the Heraldsgate Hill cul de sac residents including Judith, her cousin Remy, and Joe are horrifically stunned when Vivian announces plans to build an ostentatious condo complex amidst their homes. Adding to the growing fiasco is the arrival of Billy's brother Frankie and his wife Marva Lou who stay at the B&B. Frankie is irate that his late father left a fortune to his trophy wife Vivian. When a corpse is found behind Vivian's new home, Judith can't help herself. She starts investigating though she denies to Remy every sleuthing step of involvement she takes.

This long running cozy keeps its freshness with the interrelationships, many dysfunctional between the cast including the cousins. The story line is fast-paced from the onset as an eccentric horde invades the Heraldsgate Hill neighborhood causing havoc to the residents and amusement for the reader. The investigation is cleverly handled to add to the overall fun of exacerbation as Judith reconsiders her second time with Joe due to his eccentric people invading their of people.

Harriet Klausner

Bed-and-Breakfast owner Judith Flynn becomes embroiled in yet another murder case when an unidentified body shows up. Judith herself is about ready to commit murder when her husband Joe's ex-wife Vivian arrives at her house near the B&B and declares her intention of tearing down her home and the one next door in order to build a codomimium. Vivian's convoluted marital history and the various children from her many marriages add complications for Judith as she tries to solve the murder while disuading Vivian from her building plans. Judith's cousin Renie and her cranky mother Gertrude are on hand to lend their own brand of humor to this book, as are the usual array of guests at the B&B.

Mary Daheim, books are always a good read..but this one has a little more kick to it...suspense and family involvement...gert is the best....

This book was slow reading. I kept wanting to skip to the end to see who the killer was so I could put the book away. I did read it but I was bored the whole time and figured out the plot twist almost from the beginning, Don't want to give it away and spoil the read for anyone else but it was just so obvious to me when Herself came home married and wealthy. I also did not like how the author had Joe acting with his ex. If I had been Judith I would have borrowed the spoon from her neighbor or the shovel from Renie and used it on Joe.

This is the first of this series and this author that I have read. I found it plodding, the characters particularly annoying and the murder motive predictable. There are too many quirky characters and the constant bickering between Judith and her mother, her cousin, her husband to be distracting and served to make all of them unlikeable rather than interesting. Maybe some family therapy is in order! I couldn't even stand to read to the end of it. I know when authors have many stories in a series that some of them can fall flat, but all the reviews I read made this one seem like it was worth reading. I might try another one in the future, but I'll have to find it at a yard sale.

This series is one of my two favorites. Every time I finish a book I can't wait until another one comes out. Judith and Renie are my two fav characters; they are likeable and very funny, this series is what all cozies should be. I've read some reviews refer to Renie as over the top but that what I love about her, let's face it no cozy book is very realistic. I read these types of books to be entertained and Mary Daheim entertains me well. I give all the books in this series 4 to 5 stars and recommend them to anyone who wants a enjoyable read.

This is the first - and probably last Mary Daheim book I will read. I picked it up, as the following day I was off to Niagara Falls and the title and cover gave an impression that the book would be set around/feature the falls. Alas it wasn't and that wasn't to be my only disappointment with this story.

It appears that Daheim is a productive writer - I believe that this is 24th in the 'Bed and Breakfast' series. Therefore I don't know if Daheim is running out of ideas but this was a poorly written story with poorly developed characters.

The book is way overlong - Daheim is in desperate need of a good editor - the first 100 pages were especially a hard read with the word "Herself" seemingly appearing in every sentence. I realise that it was meant as a way of describing a character but we got the point after the first fifty mentions!

A good thriller should sow the seeds of clues throughout the book; the reader should know as much as the detective. However Daheim needed an additional chapter to wrap everything up, including the clues that only became known in that additional chapter - a sloppy way of writing a detective story.

This was a fun read, well paced with just the right amout of crazy charaters. A much better effort than the previous entry in the series (Scots on the Rocks). However, I did have a problem with the character Judith. Many times in the book when she would say something, it was that 'Judith snapped'. She 'snapped' at her cousin, her husband, neighbors, the police. It made her seem to be a bitch and the Judith of previous stories wasn't that way. I didn't like that. I think the author needs to use a different word other than 'snapped'.

I loved the book -- and have enjoyed all of the author's books to date. I only wish she could write faster.