Customer Reviews

Murder Pans Out: A Booked For Travel Mystery

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

 

 

Lynne is leading a group of teachers to research the gold country of California. Figuring she knows most of them from the years her kids spent in the Floritas school system, Lynne expects a fun, relaxing tour. But that's before the trouble starts. The fan belt dies on her van. Most of the group gets food poisoning the first night. And they return from their first day of activity to find their cabins have been searched and the owner is unconscious at the bottom of a ravine. What in the world is going on?

This series is part travel log and part mystery. The author uses multiple view points to present the story, this time including the villain. We, the reader, know what is happening (most of the time), but it actually adds to the story. While I had a little trouble keeping all the teachers straight at first, the characters are strong enough that I soon had everyone figured out. And I got so into the story, I read most of it in one day.

This isn't your traditional murder mystery series, but I really enjoy it for a change of pace.

Murder Pans Out is a terrific book to which I give high marks for its character development and sense of place.
I've never been to the Gold Country where Lynne Montgomery leads a tour but now I feel as if I have.
Add to that murder and a shade of Carl Hiassen where everybody but the protagonist knows some vital information, and you have a book that is a great reading experience.

Since I was drawn to Toll's 1st book due to my own trip to Napa area, the wine Mecca of the Left Coast, finding it (the book) enjoyable but not as humorous as I thought it could have been. But did find the plot intriguing. I pressed on with her second "Murder Pans Out" and was so glad I did!
Her character development was much improved and I found the humor was real and charming. After all, a group of school teachers traveling together, a costume dinner party, a stressed antique dealer who is literally "under the gun" are surly the makings for some well deserved chuckles. And they were there. In addition, the historical information was stimulating.
I will anxiously await her third installment and recommend that you don't miss making your reservations for the tour!

When I pick up a mystery novel from a top publisher I expect that it will follow certain standards of the genre: there will be a murder; there will be an investigation, either by the police or by an amateur sleuth; that investigation will gradually lead to the uncovering of clues; those clues will be put together to solve the mystery. There is room for a great deal of variation within that pattern, but that's what a mystery novel is all about.

So I find myself asking, What makes this a mystery? The murder doesn't occur until the end of chapter 11. The group of school teachers who are vacationing in California's Gold Country do not do one iota of sleuthing. They bumble along on their merry way, giving us long lectures about the Gold Rush or trying to deal with family and marital problems. A couple of chapters from the end, one of the women wonders if an old lamp they bought might have something to do with a series of strange mishaps which have befallen them. They catch one of the minor culprits when one goes back to a hotel room to retrieve something and stumbles across him. (He immediately gives up.)

When I get impatient with a book I usually quit on it and read something else. Life is too short to waste time on bad books. This one drew me along because I kept telling myself it couldn't be as bad as it seemed and still be published by a top house. But it was.

The murder doesn't happen for a long time, and when it did, I found myself not caring very much. The characters didn't seem to care too much either, since there was really no sleuthing going on. The story mostly focused on the lives and backgrounds and family problems of the various characters. Philandering husbands, bratty kids, etc. The characters just sort of proceeded along with their vacation. Not much of a mystery.

This was the second book by Emily Toll that I read.

I enjoyed reading about the California Gold Country and learning about the horrific, no longer used practice of hydraulic mining. I liked the characters.

However, the mystery wasn't very good. There were not enough viable suspects. Also, I figured out who the murderer was before it was disclosed. I can rarely do this. Although I enjoyed the first book more, I don't know if I'll bother to read a third.

Amos Ledbetter owns an antique shop along California Highway 49. In need of money to buy out another antique shop, Amos agreed to pick up `special' shipments of antiques in San Francisco and hold specially marked items for individuals who give him a secret password. Amos has tried to quit this business but the people he's working for have threatened his life if he tries to get out.

Lynne Montgomery owns a travel agency and has set up a special tour of the California Gold Rush Country for a group of schoolteachers. Lynne is acting as the tour guide and has a friendship with most of the teachers. On the way to the rendezvous point, Lynne develops van trouble and stops at a gas station along the highway. While the van is being worked on, she and her friend Betsy go into a Ledbetter Antiques, which is being manned by Amos' niece. Betsy buys a lamp like one her grandmother used to own. When Amos returns to the shop, he's frantic. The lamp was being held for his special buyer. Before Amos can locate Lynne and Betsy and get the lamp back, the buyer shows up and insists on going with Amos. Amos goes chasing after Lynn and Betsy, sometimes with the disreputable people he works with, in order to get the lamp back.

There were only two mysteries about this book: what was in the lamp, and why I kept reading it. This book was very slow. The back of the book states "they love roughing it at the Murmuring Pines Campground-until a mysterious accident leaves the campground's owner near death. When it becomes clear that someone is bent on making this Lynne's final tour, she must dig up some clues and catch the culprit". The accident doesn't happen until page 75, Lynne doesn't realize that the string of bad luck the group is having is related to the accident and that it's connected to the lamp until page 277 (although this fact is not kept from the reader) and she never does go searching for clues. The book spent way to much time going into each characters' background which wasn't necessary for the story and read more like a travel guide/history lesson for Gold Rush Country than a mystery.

Murder Pans Out is *delightful*! Toll fleshes out her characters in such a way that you feel like you are with them, and have known them for years. The multiple aspects of the intertwining stories and history all weave together for a great read.