Customer Reviews

MAJOR VICES.

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

 

 

Judith McMonigle Flynn and her cousin Renie have reluctantly agreed to cater their Uncle Boo's 75th. birthday party. They show up and are treated like servants instead of the relatives that they are. When the birthday celebration is over, the guest of honor disappears into his study and is later found shot to death. Judith's colorful relatives offer no end of possibilities as far as suspects go, and she, as usual, decides to do her own investigating. Her policeman husband Joe's chief rival is assigned to the case, which makes Judith even more determined to find out who the killer is. This is one of the best-written of the Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery series and is a very enjoyable read.

This is one book in a series of bed-and-breakfast mysteries set in Seattle, Washington. Anyone familiar with the city can tell that the author, Mary Daheim, has changed the place names, but retained the feel of the city in accurate descriptions. Heraldsgate Hill is really Queen Anne Hill. Norway General Hospital is really Swedish Hospital. Papaya Pete's restaurant is really Trader Vics. Donner and Blitzen department store is really the now defunct Frederick and Nelsons. Nordquist is Nordstroms. The Belle Epoch is The Bon Marche, now known just as The Bon. Moonbeams coffee house is really Starbucks, and so on. The descriptions are so accurately and fondly drawn that the reader experiences a warm sense of being there, especially if one has actually lived in Seattle at one time. The relationships of the characters are sometimes feisty but honest and often very funny. I recommend this whole series.

mary daheim's bed and breakfast mysteries are one of my favorite vices! they are all funny and fun to read, well-written and her characters are great! especially renie and gertrude! plots are fast moving and twists are frequently so unexpected that i back up to figure out how i got here from there! this one was expecially good!

I discovered Mary Daheim quite by accident, prowling around the mystery shelves of the downtown library awhile back. I discovered her, just like I discovered Donald E. Westlake: with a big slap to my forehead: how could I have lived so long, and not know about this true master of their craft?

That being said - or admitted - I am in the process of reading the entire Bed-n-Breakfast series that Daheim has created. Unfortunately, I have not done this in the order that it was written. I read Major Vices recently, when Joe was still a cop working on the force. Once I realized that I was traveling back in time, as it were, I wondered how this was going to impact things. Written earlier, would it read as well?

Of course it did.

Major Vices is Mary Daheim's tip of the hat to the Locked Room Mystery. You know the ones: Agatha Christie had one in Hercule Poirot's Christmas (great TV version with David Suchet if you get a chance to see it) and of course, John Dickson Carr's got several versions if you really like the Locked Room Murder Puzzle. There's a locked room. Someone is murdered inside.

Traditionally, all the suspects are in a big, beautiful home when suddenly someone is killed in what seems to be an impossible way. The room is locked from the inside, there's no open window, but it's clearly not a suicide.

In Major Vices, the big beautiful home is Major Manor, and the two cousins have gone to cater a family event on a cold winter evening with an escalating storm. Soon, they're trapped at the house along with the hosts and the guests since the roads have frozen over and a blinding fog surrounds the building, creeping so close to the windows that it's very hard to see anything if you tried to look outside.

Judith Flynn and her cousin Renie aren't treated any too nicely by the remote relations that hired them to cater the birthday party of their elderly Uncle Boo. Of course, the family members don't treat each other any nicer, and while it's no surprise that Uncle Boo might escape to his study, it is quite a big surprise when he's discovered dead in his desk chair, bullet to the head. They only get in the room after Judith picks the lock, and Judith is quick to note that the windows are locked. Later, Renie and Judith (Renie cajoled into a midnight search with the promise of a late night snack) carefully comb the room only to confirm that there are no secret passageways or hidden doors.

Who killed Uncle Boo? More importantly, as Judith points out early in the story, how was the murder committed?

Complicating matters is that when the police arrive, it's the doofus detective, and Joe's nemisis, that has been assigned the case, not Judith's husband. He, of course, immediately arrests the wrong man.

I laughed and chuckled my way through this book, and while I did guess who committed the crime, I got the how it was done all, all wrong.

Fun read. Great series. Underappreciated writer.

I highly recommend this book.

- Reba Kennedy

This 7th book in the series is a good murder mystery. The only thing that gets tiresome is the rather overdone wicked shirtail relative bickering. This is the only reason I gave it 4 stars. Sometimes it was too much and I found myself skimming paragraphs and at times having to go back because I missed something important. Still I found it an easy read and a delightful mystery