Customer Reviews

Angel Food and Devil Dogs - A Maggie Gale Mystery (Maggie Gale Mysteries)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved this book. Even though it is early June, I am convinced that Angel Food and Devil Dogs is going to be my favorite summer read.

I enjoyed spending time with the characters in the book. Some characters I felt I had known for ages, and others I grew attached to as the clever mystery whodunit played out. It's a smart book with poetry, academia, architecture, and antiques - all the necessary lesbian staples. My favorite parts were the steamy scenes with Maggie and Kathryn. It is really hot stuff.

Along with the dead bodies and girls kissing, the book is laugh out loud funny at times. I don't want to give any of the book away but basically, for me, the story was a perfect balance of what makes an enjoyable reading experience. It was exciting to read the fine print at the end of the book which claims there is another Maggie Gale mystery in the works. Keep them coming!

I only rated this book 3 stars (I'll get to why in a minute), but I don't want that to be misleading. Angel Food and Devil Dogs was a very enjoyable read and Liz Bradbury shows a lot of promise as a fiction author. I'd have no hesitation about buying another one of her books.

Normally I do fairly long reviews, but I think for this one it's easiest to just say I liked the primary and many of the secondary characters. I liked the mystery plot. I liked the romance. The overall writing was very good and I truly did enjoy reading this book. With a few adjustments I'd have had no problem giving it four stars.

There were two main issues with the book that caused me to subtract that star though. The first issue is the big one and at times it had me pulling my hair out in frustration. In a detective novel the obvious goal of the detective is to cleverly gather clues and information as she investigates. But Maggie doesn't seem to mind letting all sorts of obvious questions go unanswered, over and over and over again. In almost every single interview during her investigation the interviewee made comments that were just begging for follow-up questions. But Maggie never asked them! She'd just go on to something else or indicate they were done, leaving me flabbergasted at what she hadn't asked.

The solution is one of two things. Either write it so the person being interviewed doesn't make the sorts of comments that anyone with any common sense would have to ask about in more detail, or write more detailed investigational interviews. It's possible the author thought going on too long in an interview is boring to the reader. But it's the job of the author to make it not be boring. Mystery readers like this stuff, so don't think we'll be bored!

The other main issue is technical and it alone would not have caused me to downgrade by a star, but it's significant enough to mention. The book really suffered from lack of copy-editing. There were dozens and dozens of places throughout where words were dropped from sentences. It was always obvious from context what they were, but these kinds of mistakes should be caught. The other biggy is that Bradbury seems to be having a passionate love affair with commas. I can understand this because I suffer from the same affliction, though not to that degree. Someone needs to get her to just step away from the comma key. ;)

Unless you're a punctuation obsessive or feel that interviews with suspects are the only critical part of a mystery novel I can in good faith recommend Angel Food and Devil Dogs to those who enjoy both mysteries and romances. I'll be keeping an eye out for the next one.

Kindle specific note: The Kindle edition is formatted pretty well. I only noticed a couple small errors. Though there really needs to be a couple spaces between the chapter headings and the first paragraph in the chapter.

This is a well-written mystery that will keep you guessing, have you wondering about who dunnit, and will have your heart pounding too as the pieces of the puzzle begin falling into place! You'll find humor, romance, friendship and the interweaving threads of crimes and mystery. I enjoyed this as my 'beach read' this summer!

I haven't read mysteries in years. After the first several hundred, they all felt the same to me.

But Angel Food and Devil Dogs is more than just a mystery. The mystery part was fine. I guessed just enough not to feel stupid and missed just enough not to be disappointed.

It's the rest of it, though, that I enjoyed so much. The main character, Maggie Gale, is multi-talented and multi-faceted, strong, skilled, smart--admirable, but not too perfect. The other characters, and there are a lot of them, are so well-drawn and distinctive that I had no trouble following this cast of dozens.

The best part, though, was the relationship at the heart of the story. It felt true, and to me, the working out of intimate relationships is the real mystery.

This was a book I enjoyed walking around in, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

This is a real complex figure-out-the-clues mystery! No last minute pulled-out-of-a-hat solution that you, as the armchair detective, could never have figured out. Anyone who thinks that just skipped ahead to get to the hot romance part, which was delightful by the way. After all, the mainstream mystery novel groups Mysterious Reviews and Hidden Staircase Mystery Books both rated it four magnifying glasses. There are clues, and you can find them, but you might be too caught up in the story to try.

I you are tired of the same-old same-old you read in way too much formulaic Lesbian lit, this book is for you. This is thoughtful, intelligent writing with interesting story lines, well developed primary and secondary characters, a hot romance that makes sense and satisfies, and a real mystery.

Re the comment by another reviewer about the characters being critical of other Lesbians who are not out. -- Huh? -- In both very minor references Maggie isn't critical of people who aren't out, she's critical of people who are both gay and homophobic. One has committed federal immigration fraud to cover up her sexual orientation, even though she has no reason to hide it. The other mentions two Lesbians who spew vitriolic hate language about GLBT people because they are so frustrated by their own internalized homophobia. And yes, both mentions are important to the plot.

Is it possible to write a real mystery story and include a romance without detracting from the mystery elements? Liz Bradbury's Angel Food and Devil Dogs seems to prove that it can be done.

Maggie Gale has just started her detective business after spending several years as a police officer and she's picking up some work helping out her sister who is a lawyer. She's involved in a case trying to prove that a mentally challenged man did not commit a brutal murder he's accused of when she receives a call from President Max Bouchet of Irwin College. He wants Maggie to investigate what appears to be a suspicious suicide by popular music Professor Carl Rasmus. Early in the investigation it becomes clear someone is killing professors as dead and injured bodies begin to accumulate and Maggie has a number of suspects to process, most of them other professors. As she collects information on each of them, one professor becomes more important than the others. Dr. Kathryn Anthony is beautiful and brilliant and, although her students call her the Ice Queen, Maggie senses that there is someone very different under the veneer. She's very happy when she can eliminate Kathryn as a suspect and begin a wholly different type of relationship with her. As they become lovers, they also become partners in trying to figure out what the professors have in common and why someone would be trying to eliminate them. Eventually Maggie begins to fit the confusing pieces together, only to discover that she's been looking in the wrong direction. That simple mistake could cost another life, maybe Maggie's.

Bradbury has written a classic mystery - who did it, why did he do it. There are enough red herrings to keep the reader guessing about what is going on right until the end of the book. This is one of those books where the reader can subconsciously figure out what is happening, but probably won't realize it until the end of the book. The characters are well developed and convincing and the secondary characters add depth to both the mystery and the romance. Maggie is particularly appealing as she works her way through both cases. She works the information without making unbelievable leaps to conclusions. Bradbury manages to write two stand alone stories within one. The mystery and the romance could have been separate books, but she weaves them together in a way that neither one suffers. There is a clever connection between the title and what happens in the book and several humorous scenes to break up the tension of the story. This is one of those books that the reader will find hard to put down.

The only negative comment is about an attitude expressed more than once by Maggie and Katherine. They are out and vocal about their sexual orientation and have very harsh comments to make about people who don't follow that same lifestyle, at one point expressing almost hatred for them. Not only do the comments reflect little compassion for the situations other people find themselves in, but a lesbian novel expressing disgust with another part of the community is unfortunate. There are plenty of people attacking gays and lesbians without a lesbian author doing the same thing. These statements only take up a few sentences out of 302 pages, but it is jarring to be reading and enjoying a story and then have these ideas pop up, especially since they add nothing to the plot. It also could have used a better editor. An editor probably would have questioned including these statements, but certainly would have caught the number of words that are missing from sentences and misspelled.

On the whole Angel Food and Devil Dogs is a very entertaining book, well worth spending the time reading. If you're looking for a book to take on vacation, this one would be an excellent choice.

This story is not intense, sit on the edge of your seat type of mystery. However, it was an enjoyable story that interspersed romance along with the mystery. It actually had me wondering who did it until it was revealed. There's not a lot to say other than I'll read more Maggie Gale mysteries. Probably the only problem I had with this novel was the title. It really doesn't have anything to do with the mystery.

I enjoyed the plot on this and the romance was pretty fun. It is nice to find some lesbian fiction on Kindle for under $10 a pop.

A complex mystery set in the celebration of new found romance. This is a delightful tale of Maggie Gale, a savvy detective who happens to be lesbian. The solid plot is only enhanced by Gale's sudden romance, which is intertwined in the mystery. An enjoyable read that I could not put down.

The book was enjoyable and entertaining. Great character development and story line. Good to have another author in the community - can't wait for the next release.