Customer Reviews

Murder By the Book

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

 

 

Texas suffers from a terrible drought that has dried up many of the lakes in the Amarillo area. The Wild Horse Lake is at the lowest ebb it has been in decades; so low that an abandoned Depression Era car up until recently buried under water is now visible.

Like her peers at the Murder by the Yard Reading Circle that meets at the Time and Again Bookstore, reference librarian Megan Clark enjoys reading and discussing mystery novels. Unlike her friends, she finds the recently discovered vehicle fascinating as she wants to know why it was dumped into the lake. However, as she tries to learn more about the Depression Era car, Megan begins to find corpses; the police consider the librarian as the prime suspect as they have no one else. However, Megan believes the real culprit knows Agatha Christie intimately as the killer seems to follow the means of many of the late author's novels.

MURDER BY THE BOOK, the fifth Murder by the Yard tale, is a fun cozy that fans of the series will appreciate as Megan urges her reluctant armchair book club detectives to help her solve the Depression Era mystery and the present day whodunit. At the same time she wants their help, Megan knows she is a person of interest to the cops and that probably one of her bookworm colleagues is most likely the killer as Christie is the focus. D. R. Meredith provides a delightful amateur sleuth tale with some police procedural elements that contrast to Megan's sleuthing skills.

Harriet Klausner

While the author did a good job building her characters and their relationship, she really got off base with her Agatha Christie research. The reference to Murder, She Said being a version of the book What Mrs. McGillicudy Saw was an error - there was never such a book version, only a film version with Margaret Rutherford starring as Miss Marple. Also, the author clearly did not know that Ten Little Indians and And Then There Were None were two different names for the same book. She also referenced "Barbara Peters" when she meant Elizabeth Peters (Barbara Michaels is a pseudonym). I also was able to figure out the plot from the very beginning. The witch and the cape were clear giveaways. I was dissapointed, but would probably give this author another chance if she did her research next time. Signed, a true Christie Fan.

My husband recently died, and needless to say I've gone through a state of depression. A great friend of mine keeps me supplied in books. And "Murder By the Book" is a book she gave me recently.

It's great. It reminds me of the Agatha Christie book I've loved growing up.

This book certainly helped me forget about my depression. I got caught up in the story.

I highly recommend it. It's a great book for mystery buffs and everyday people like myself.

One of my favorite writers! Great and fun reading! I only wished she wrote more often.

I don't have a great deal to say on this book because there's not much here for mystery fans.

This one falls into the "cozy murder" genre and I would additionally sub-categorize it into the now-all-too-common contemporary category of "murder-goofy."

This tale is superficial, plagued with unsuccessful devices to make it more clever such as blending first-person narrative with the third-person writing style. Agatha Christie is name-dropped ad nauseum which, of course, further deteriorates this already diminutive and unrealistic (beyond even the already-broad cozy murder writing parameters) story.

THE STORY: Mystery book club members meet at the local bookstore in a Texas town (along Route 66) once a week to pursue their common interests. Murders commence to occur on schedule with these get-togethers. A parallel tale of past murder, told by an old woman in a rest home, begins to mesh with the contemporary deaths. The heroine here is a multi-degreed archaeologist and the actual protagonist is her former mentor and wanna-be lover.

Additional distractions here are aptly provided by the publisher -- this book is rampant with typos and other egregious errors. At one point, I was hit with three typos in two subsequent short paragraphs. There is little excuse for this sort of publishing sloppiness.

As you probably suspect at this point, I do not recommend this less than mediocre mystery.

This is another book trying to placate all readers. Therefore, it misses. I was disappointed that more wasn't done with the basic premise.