Customer Reviews

Can't Never Tell: A Southern Fried Mystery (Southern Fried Mysteries)

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

 

 

I enjoyed this latest adventure of Avery Andrews, although I did not find it as gripping as previous books. I felt there were some lose threads not completely tied together. I think I was waiting for some unlikable characters to get their come uppance.
This installment had Avery kind of sad and lonely. I'd like to see her have a real love interest, not another loser. Or at least give her some friends.

Avery's 4th of July holiday gets off to a bumpy start when she finds herself embroiled in two mysterious deaths. First Avery and her niece, Emma, make a grizzly discovery at the carnival fright house. The following day a woman dies under questionable circumstances while attending the same picnic as Avery. Was it just an unfortunate accident...or murder?

This 5th entry in the series is quite busy, with two investigations, 4th of July festivities in Dacus and (gasp!) an actual date for Avery. The author does her usual competent job of bringing small-town Dacus to life, with all its southern charm and quirkiness. The mystery is engaging, with a small circle of suspects and motives that kept me guessing. There's enough detail about Avery's family and series regulars like Melvin Bertram to give you that familiar feeling that is a hallmark of any cozy mystery - that sense of knowing the characters, feeling invested in what becomes of them.

This is a series that I love to recommend to readers who enjoy a "smart" cozy with an appealing small-town southern setting. The humor is understated, the characters believable and it's obvious that the author know her stuff when it comes to the legal issues that Avery tackles. Having said all that, if you are new to the series this is not the place to start. Avery is a bit off-center in this one; not as self-assured as she appears in the earlier books. Best to start with the first book,
Southern Fried

No strong language or sexual content.

One last note. I haven't seen anything about the next book in the series, so I decided to check out the author's web page. Bad news. Although she doesn't definitely say that there won't be another Avery Andrews mystery, there are no immediate plans to write another installment. I'm disappointed, but you have to respect an author who likes her characters well enough to give them a rest if she doesn't feel there's anything more to add to their story. But on the slim chance that Ms. Pickens ever sees this...maybe just one more, with a happy ending for Avery? Please?

To say that Ms. Pickens is one of my favorite southern mystery writers is an understatement. I have read all of her "Southern Fried" mysteries, and I can't say that I have read one that I did not fully enjoy. I read a review in which the reviewer asked for a strong love interest for Avery, but I believe that would weaken the character. I love the fact that she is a strong, independant woman who knows her own mind and at the same time knows the way to Mom's and Dad's house and still can be a little intimidated by her great-aunts. The small town of Dacus so reminds me of the small town in which I tried so hard not to grow up. Avery is a keeper, and if Ms. Pickens should give us more of Avery in the future, I would hope that she maintains the same strong character with the same humorous ways of dealing with small town crime.

This being said, "Can't Never Tell" is probably my favorite of the series. It starts with Avery and her neice Emma in a fake fright house on a hot, muggy July 4th evening. Their discovery of a real body part just gets the party started. The next day Avery is at the falls when someone falls/slips/was pushed? Suspects are few, but the husband is number one on the list for many in Dacus. We get to meet Avery's brother-in-law in this book, and get to know her sister better. Now that I know her family better, I am invested. If you enjoy southern humor and a good light mystery, read this book. I personally started with the first in the series, "Southern Fried" and worked my way chronologically through all five. This one is the last (so far) of the series, and I believe it's the best. But I wouldn't have missed any of them.

Cathy Pickens has the talent to write exceptional, light mysteries which I enjoy. In CAN'T NEVER TELL, however, the ending is just too hurried which makes the book a disappointment. I will say I have now read all her Southern Fried Mysteries and enjoyed her main character and her interactions with her friends and family. I just thought the way the author concluded this particular novel was a "cop-out."

Lawyer Avery Andrews attends a picnic near South Carolina's Bow Falls, tallest waterfall in the east, planning for fried chicken, cole slaw and sweet tea. Instead, a woman slips or is pushed over the falls making it the second body in a week that Avery's caught up with. "Cain't Never Tell" is a mystery where carney life clashes with Southern small town culture and the academic world. Author Cathy Pickens keeps the reader guessing while shaking with laughter or puzzlement during Avery's pursuit in finding the truth. Fun read in the continuing Southern Fried Mystery series.

Enjoyed this as much as the earlier Southern Fried mysteries. Always a good story and timely, too.

In Dacus, South Carolina, seven year old Emma is somewhat bored while wandering around the fair fright house with her Aunt Avery while two teenage couples are also touring the place. However, the child's ennui ends when the leg of a mannequin with a chainsaw separates; she realizes immediately as does her aunt that the limb is that of a human remain. The fright house is closed as the cops investigate the mannequin that turns out to be a mummified human.

The next day, Emma's parents and Aunt Avery are attending a faculty picnic near Bow Falls when the wife of Professor Reimann falls into the waterfall. While the Fair's owners have retained attorney Avery to help them reopen for the July Fourth holiday weekend, a friend of the professor asks her to file a life insurance claim since the grieving widower is too upset to do so. However, Avery also wants to know who the corpse in the fright house is though she leaves that to her assistant Shamanique to explore and who pushed Rinda into the falls.

The latest Avery Andrews legal cozy is a fun regional tale filled with some of the down home humor expected of a Cathy Pickens novel; starting with the two teen couples Amazonian girlfriends knocking the leg off the mannequin. The story line is not quite as fast and breezy as previous entries like HUSH MY MOUTH or HOG WILD but in some ways is much deeper as the audience obtains a profound look at financial fraud that is critical to the plot leading to a cautionary afterward.

Harriet Klausner