Wedding Day Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 8) [Hardcover]

Leslie Meler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tinker's Cove, Maine, is the cozily evoked setting of Meier's lighthearted Lucy Stone novels, which are usually set around holidays or significant life events. Here a harried Lucy is trying to juggle children, husband and a full-time job when her best friend, Sue Finch, asks for help in planning the wedding of Sue's mother, Sidra, and Internet millionaire Ron Davitz. Lucy agrees to let the ceremony take place in her backyard gazebo. When the groom and his social-climbing mother arrive on a large yacht, tempers start flaring among the townspeople. Local fishermen are being displaced from their moorings in the harbor to make way for summer visitors in an attempt to raise much-needed revenues for the town. Davitz proves to be a singularly graceless, stereotypical computer nerd, but when he's found floating dead in the water, suspicion quickly focuses on an old flame of the bride. Lucy once more finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation, and at first she fears that Sue, or Sue's temperamental husband, might have done something drastic to get rid of a potential father-in-law he despised. In a leisurely paced investigation, Lucy perseveres through various irritations to dig up the truth. Despite the obvious pall cast by the murder of the groom, Meier manages to pull off a happy ending, replete with a charming wedding in which her fans will rejoice.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

On a summer morning, reporter Lucy Stone learns that her friend Sue's daughter will marry a dot-com millionaire at Sue's Maine home. Then the prospective in-laws appear and try to take over the wedding, the groom drowns, and Sue finds herself the leading suspect. Lucy rushes to the rescue. In this eighth Lucy Stone mystery, Meier takes well-worn plot elements-- small-town tensions, in-law troubles--and buffs them into a fresh yarn. Characters and their interactions are realistic and dryly humorous, the Maine coast provides an evocative backdrop, and the short course on dot-com business is enlightening on its own and seamlessly incorporated into the story. An amiable cozy for fans of the late Anne George. John Rowen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575666529
• ISBN-13: 978-1575666525
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,396,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I started writing in the late '80s when I was attending graduate classes at Bridgewater State College. I wanted to become certified to teach high school English and one of the required courses was Writing and the Teaching of Writing. My professor suggested that one of the papers I wrote for that course was good enough to be published and I sent it off to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's Department of First Stories. I got $100 for the story and I've been writing ever since. The teaching, however, didn't work out.

My books draw heavily on my experience as a mother of three and my work as a reporter for various weekly newspspers on Cape Cod. My heroine, Lucy Stone, is a reporter in the fictional town of Tinker's Cove, Maine, where she lives in an old farmhouse (quite similar to mine on Cape Cod!) with her restoration carpenter husband Bill and four children. As the series has progressed the kids have grown older, roughly paralleling my own family. We seem to have reached a point beyond which Lucy cannot age -- my editor seems to want her to remain forty-something forever -- though I have to admit I am dying to write "Menopause is Murder"!

I usually write one Lucy Stone mystery every year and "Wicked Witch Murder" came out in August, 2010. I fell in love with one character, a four-year-old boy named Nemo, and he makes a second appearance in a Christmas novella included in "Gingerbread Cookie Murder," which also features tales by Laura Levine and Joanne Fluke, due to be published in October, 2010. I've just finished "English Tea Murder" in which Lucy and her friends visit England, coming out sometime in 2011. My books are classified as cozies but a good friend insists they are really "comedies of manners" and I do enjoy expressing my view of contemporary American life.

Now that the kids are grown -- I now have two grandchildren -- my husband and I are enjoying our empty nest on Cape Cod which we share with our adorable Brittany, Sylvie.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable reading, January 18, 2004

By 

mdmom "mdmom" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wedding Day Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 8) (Paperback)

The whole Lucy Stone series is very enjoyable reading. Lucy is a very regular person with family issues that could apply to alot of people. Sometimes I wish she could have a nicer time of things, but then the story wouldn't be the same. The mysteries she solves are not huge conundrums, but I like to get an idea of who the killer might be before the last page sometimes! Not every mystery book needs to be the end-all of stories--just fun and easy is nice, too. And her series is definitely that. If you are looking for deep darkness, this is not it. But if you want a likable character and easy flowing story, here you go.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun cosy, October 21, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wedding Day Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 8) (Hardcover)

The residents of Tinker's Cove, Maine enjoy staying away from the hustle and bustle lifestyle of big city living as found in Bangor or Portland. Crime is rare in the tiny hamlet, but when a homicide occurs all the locals know that Pennysaver reporter Lucy Stone can found be in the midst of the investigation.

Currently, Lucy works on a more difficult project than murder. She is helping her best friend plan a wedding reception. Things go so wrong right from the start so that Lucy wonders if Murphy was an optimist, as he never had to deal with t wealthy groom's mother who has her own ideas that she expects implemented. The two families hate each other, but the townsfolk back the bride's side because the groom's brood is interfering with the local livelihood. When the groom's body is found floating in the nearby sea, a victim of murder, almost everyone within the town's radius had a motive, making a plethora of suspects for Lucy to learn who had the opportunity.

The Lucy Stone mysteries engage fans of cozies as the violence occurs off stage leaving the heroine and her who-done-it inquiries to share the starring roles. Lucy, her family, and those locals the reader meet seem genuine and very likable some in a more crustacean manner. On the other hand, the odious groom's family feel more like Robin Lynch drawing caricatures of the rich and famous. Still cozy fans will enjoy Leslie Meier's latest Stone adventure.

Harriet Klausner

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wedding day murder, October 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Wedding Day Murder (Lucy Stone Mysteries, No. 8) (Hardcover)

it was very entertaining,always enjoy Lucy Stone books. A fun read!