Customer Reviews

Daughter of Deceit (Family Tree Mysteries, No. 3)

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

 

 

"Daughter of Deceit" is the third entry into Patricia Sprinkle's Family Tree Mysteries &, in my opinion, the weakest. The book is not bad, but I feel that the first two are better. I continue to love the Buckhead, Atlanta setting, but I wasn't all that interested in Bara, who is the center of the mystery. I really wanted to see more of Katharine Murray, the protagonist, but it seemed as though there were too many chapters devoted entirely to Bara & her family problems. I felt that Katharine was tangential at best & wasn't even needed for the book.

Even though "Daughter of Deceit" isn't my favorite in the series, the book itself is good, & I'll surely buy a fourth book in this series.

This is an enjoyable story, however the spelling and gramatical errors make it hard to read.

Bara Weidenauer is having a hard time. Her husband Foley is asking for a divorce and wants half of everything. He has frozen her bank accounts, credit cards and had all items in the house appraised and listed so she cannot sell them. She believes he will take her for every penny she has, and to make matters worse, he is seeing their former maid. After being sober for a long time, Bara has taken up drinking again.

Bara's father committed suicide a little while ago. She stored his belongings in a storage unit. She goes to the unit to look through her father's things for money for groceries. She comes across her dad's military medals.

Katharine Murray is recovering from her house being vandalized. She has been redoing her house, getting it ready for a big party. That is until Bara comes into Katharine's life.

Bara decides to have the medals framed for her grandson Chip. Someone gives her the idea to ask Katharine to see what the medals mean so that when Chip is older, he will know what kind of man his great grandpa was.

Katharine gets to work on the medals-and it starts to get really interesting. Bara and she get together and go over the meaning of the medals and read the citations they found that go with some of them.

Foley is discovered dead and Bara is badly beaten up with lots of broken bones. When the police look at Bara as the only suspect in Foley's death, Katharine starts her own investigating. She is questioning people and revealing a family secret that has been hidden for lots of years.

I really liked this series. This is the first one I have read by Patricia Sprinkle but I will be sure to read the others. I find the background interesting when they are searching for people as well as items. I was really drawn into the book and the characters became real to me as they are real down-to-earth people like us. Some of the characters are wealthy, but still have the same problems as others.

Armchair Interviews says: Another good offering from Patricia Sprinkle.

This is an easy to read murder mystery with some family geneaology thrown in. The protaganist, Katherine Murray, gets drug into the murder since she is investigating some World War II war medals for Bara Weidenauer, who becomes accused of murder.

I enjoyed the setting for the story, Buckhead, in Atlanta and getting to know the characters, particularly, Bara kept my interest.

There were some chapters in the story that just did not seem to add up or need to be in the novel. The chapters that bothered me the most were the scenes with Katherine's neice, Hollis and Kenny, a computer geek. A number of chapters were devoted to these two people squabbling and the scenes did not bring anything to the story. They provided nor added nothing and I felt they were superfluous.

It is an easy read but not really very interesting.

I began reading Patricia Sprinkle's books when she was writing the Sheila Travis series (loved it....great plots and humor!). I then introduced myself to McLauren Yarbrough and visited her often in that series (truly wonderful!!!!). Loving history and genealogy, I knew this series was right up my alley.....and it is! Sprinkle's characters become good friends of mine. They are real, and I enjoy visiting them so much. I highly recommend all three series to any cozy mystery lover.

An entertaining, hold your attention read. Being a genealogist and history buff was just a bonus. Katherine reluctantly takes on the job of finding out about Bara's father's war medals and promptly opens a can of worms. Enjoy!