Customer Reviews

Motherhood Is Murder

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The one good thing about anthology books is you get a chance to read stories from authors you may not have read before and then decide if you want to ever read them again. This book contains four stories - 2 from authors I have previous read and two who were brand new to me.

1. Dial M For Mom - by Mary Daheim.
Mary Daheim's Bed & Breakfast Series are my favorite books in mystery series.
This story is a continuation from that series, in which Cousin Renie's three children have announced their engagements. The story is very funny as she tries to plan three weddings, all on the same day, but at different locations without going crazy. It doesn't help that her photographer is found dead in the parking lot after the wedding rehearsal.
Is it murder? Could it have anything to do with the mysterious man who keeps showing up in pictures that he had taken of the families earlier?

2. Mothers Must Do - by Carolyn Hart. I have read several of Carolyn Hart's books, but none with the character of Laurel Darling Roethke, so I don't know if she has a continuing series with her.
I hope not.
I didn't like the character of Laurel Darling, from the beginning of the book where she loads up the dead body and moves it so the police won't know where he was killed, to her continuously thinking "Dear Max" whenever her son's name comes up. And it seems to come up all the time.
The mystery wasn't very interesting. I didn't care about any of the people and couldn't wait for the story to end.

3. The Proof Is In The Patch - by Jane Isenberg -
I have never read any of her books before, but I enjoyed this story enough that I will check out more of her books.
Bel Barrett is a college professor. One day she receives an urgent call from a student who needs to see her right away. Bel puts her off until the next day, which is unfortunate as the student is murdered before they can have their meeting.
Bel decides to investigate the girl's murder, which includes taking a job as a nanny at the home where the student had worked and had been murdered.
The story had some very funny moments the mystery was interesting and I really liked the character of Bel Barrett.

4. Tomcat - by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. I have never read any of her books before and won't read any in the future. I couldn't even finish this one. Maybe you have to be a cat person to enjoy it.

The book is a must buy if you're a fan of Mary Daheim as her story is a continuation of a storyline in her books and although you may get bits and pieces in her next book, this will probably be the only place to get a complete look at the weddings of all three of Cousin Renie's kids, and that alone is worth the price of the book.

Don't let the cats on the cover fool you, these stories are about mothers.

The stories are OK, but only the last one (Tomcat - by Shirley Rousseau Murphy) has any cats. I love SRM's Joe Grey mystery books and that is why I bought this book. The "Tomcat" story is OK but disturbing. It takes place in a small town and talks about how people drown their unwanted kittens and do not believe in spay/neutering their cats. The women who are trying to Spay/neuter/return cats are made fun of and ridiculed. I do not know whether these statements are to inform people that these horrible outdated believes are still out there or to inform the people who still believe that these types of animal population control are acceptable that they need to get with the times and stop. Anyway the story itself (Woman is missing, her cat acts strange and finally leads people to where the woman is) was OK but reading about the horrible things people thought were acceptable to do to cats and kittens ruined it for me. I had been looking forward to this story but was very disappointed.